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Kings-Stars Game Preview: fuck you, Sean Avery

Los Angeles Kings v Dallas Stars (American Airlines Center)

Time: 3.00 PM

TV: Fox Sports West

Enemy reading: Defending Big D

Stars (projected) lineup:

Nystrom-Benn-Jagr
Whitney-Roy-Eriksson
Smith-Eakin-Cole
Roussel-Petersen-Vincour

Robidas-Dillon
Daley-Goligoski
Rome-Larsen

Lehtonen

Injured: Fiddler (lower body), Garbutt (hand)

Kings (projected) lineup:

Brown-Kopitar-Williams
Richards-Carter-Toffoli
Penner-Stoll-Lewis
Clifford-Fraser-King

Muzzin-Doughty
Scuderi-Voynov
Ellerby-Martinez

Bernier

Injured: Greene (back), Mitchell (knee)

Game notes:

  • The Kings lineup is mostly my wishful thinking. It’s not a huge stretch to imagine that Dustin Penner will dress tonight, but I’m not sure who comes out. I would still guess Jordan Nolan, but I know others would rather see Dwight King sit. (I didn’t watch the first half of the game last night, so I didn’t see the incriminating play LAKI talks about here.)
  • If Jonathan Bernier doesn’t play, we riot. Again, I didn’t see the first half of the game against the Wild, so Jonathan Quick didn’t look outright bad to me, but it’s the second half of a road back-to-back and I don’t know why this would even be a debate.
  • I hope the Stars didn’t watch the game either, or they’ll have discovered the new NHL rule that you can high-stick Slava Voynov with impunity. (Okay, sorry, I hate those “blame it on the refs” people and I do know, logically, that bad calls even up and it’s not the end of the world, etc etc but come on that was ridiculous. I’m letting myself be mad about it for one more day. Deal with it.)
  • Fun! With! Numbers! Because I love you, I learned how to make a table on this thing:

Team Games
Played
Points ROW

Home/Away
Record

Goal
Differential
PP% PK%
Kings (5th, West) 34 41 18 7-8-2 +14 19.7% 81.8%
Stars (9th, West) 33 35 15 8-7-2 -8 18.8% 82.0%

  • As I’m sure you all remember, the Kings are 0-2 against the Stars this season, dropping 5-2 and 2-0 games at Staples so far. Both of those were lacklustre efforts from the Kings, which is what made the losses so frustrating. With the Stars scrapping to get back into playoff position, sort of trying pretty hard isn’t going to cut it.
    Ugh.
  • At least the Stars aren’t all bad. There’s always this:/

Averydouche_medium

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