I never thought I’d say this, but I sort of miss Steve Ott. Whenever a Dallas Stars game rolled around, hatred gave me focus. I saw folks on the East coast heaping insults on him on Twitter the other day, and felt all nostalgic. He’s so awful he’ll probably wind up traded to the Vancouver Canucks, because they collect dirty clowns like grandmas collect dainty porcelain figurines.
That stupid donkey.
I tried coming up with a list of new things to feel angry about tonight. It’s short, but I think it will work.
1. We could have won going into the third last time out, and instead they beat us 5-2. Get revenge for that. Grr.
2. Dallas Stars fans. Enough said.
3. The last game, we were beaten by a guy named Ryan Garbutt.
This cannot stand. We must beat him until he weeps and brings shame upon the entire Garbutt family. More shame and humiliation than their name already provides…wait, he’s not in the lineup? Damn you, Butt man!
Let’s look at the lines.
Los Angeles Kings v Dallas Stars (Staples Center)
Time: 7.30 PM
TV: Fox Sports West
Seats: Los Angeles Kings tickets
Enemy reading: Defending Big D
Stars (projected) lineup:
Whitney-Benn-Eriksson
Morrow-Roy-Cole
Smith-Eakin-Jagr
Nystrom-Fiddler-Roussel
Dillon-Robidas
Goligoski-Daley
Benn-Larsen
Lehtonen
Kings (projected) lineup:
Brown–Kopitar–Williams
Penner–Richards–Carter
King–Stoll–Lewis
Clifford–Fraser–Nolan
Muzzin–Doughty
Scuderi–Voynov
Ellerby–Martinez
Quick
- Tyler Toffoli is out, and Jordan Nolan is back in. Pretty much the entire roster had a rough go of it against the Coyotes on Tuesday, but Toffoli also took a late penalty. It’s only a matter of time before he breaks into the NHL in a permanent role, but Sutter’s going to watch him carefully.
- Penner was briefly reunited with Kopitar and Williams, and scored a goal. We hadn’t really seen that line since after the deadline in 2011, before it was broken up by injuries (ugh). It’s an effective trio, but I expect Penner back up with Richards. Still, there was a lot of odd line shuffling the last time out. If the Kings struggle, Sutter might experiment again.
- Ray Whitney is penciled in for the Stars. He’s a game-time decision with an upper body injury.
- The Kings have struggled to control the play in their last two games, but still came out with wins. Let’s hope they can clean up and put it back together tonight, because 40 shots against is not their brand of hockey. It may be a bit easier since Dallas is on the second game of a back to back, but they’re also fired up after losing a two goal lead against Colorado.
- Jonathan Quick rebounded with a strong shutout effort on Monday. Is he back on track? Fingers crossed.
- Go Kings go