Fun fact! The Kings’ power play has broken 10%! Those two goals against the Rangers helped push their man advantage success rate up to 13.2%, ranking them 27th in the league. Below them are the Blackhawks (home of an almost always inexplicably bad power play), Golden Knights, Hurricanes, and Coyotes. The Hurricanes are somewhat surprising, as special teams has always been a strength of theirs, but they’re still at least finding ways to win despite that.
And if you look only at home games, the Kings look even better, with a power play that converts 26.3% of the time. That puts them in the top ten in the league, a much more impressive stat.
The man advantage on the road is, well, still a big fat zero. The Kings and the Golden Knights are the only teams yet to score on the power play during a road game, and with six more games in this homestand, the Kings won’t have a chance to change that any time soon.
Kings Things
Lisa Dillman looks at Dustin Brown’s influence on the Kings. [The Athletic]
Some lessons learned from the Kings’ win over the Rangers. [Los Angeles Times]
The Kings organization has apparently decided to leave rookie goalie Cole Kehler in Manchester with the ECHL and has signed goalie Evan Buitenhuis to a PTO for the Reign. [Ontario Reign]
Zach Dooley has more details on Buitenhuis, as well as a look at what the Reign’s lineup looks with the addition of Mike Amadio. [Reign Insider]
Kale Clague talks about cancer’s impact on his family. The Reign’s Hockey Fights Cancer night is this Saturday.
5 years ago this December, Kale Clague lost his Baba to lung cancer. This is his #HockeyFightsCancer story.
Join us on Saturday in Ontario for our HFC Night with the #Reign! pic.twitter.com/HGYtRPBnZg
— Ontario Reign (@ontarioreign) October 30, 2018
Elsewhere in the World
PensBurgh is running a pledge drive to benefit Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and the Tree of Life Synagogue. [PensBurgh]
Raw Charge breaks down the first ten games of the Tampa Bay Lightning’s season. [Raw Charge]
Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Erik Karlsson have been real good so far. [Fear the Fin]
Ohio State’s women’s hockey team wore jerseys that weren’t only hard to read, they were against NCAA rules. Why did they stick with them? [The Athletic]
The NHL has partnered with MGM on a sports betting deal, allowing MGM to have access to proprietary NHL data and player tracking. [TSN]
The USNTDP hosted a sensory friendly game — a quieter, calmer experience for fans with autism or other sensory challenges. [The Athletic]
Some more data behind pulling the goalie:
When are NHL teams pulling their goalies in 2018-19? The dashboard is now *live* and you can see data at the league, team, or game level, with comparisons to 2017-18. Plus: which teams are scoring the most goals (and winning!) with their goalie pulled. https://t.co/510x0fFxnK pic.twitter.com/18Y24lp2cA
— Meghan Hall (@MeghanMHall) October 30, 2018
On the tradition of the team Halloween party. [The Athletic]
Your Evening Entertainment
Your free streaming game on NHL.com tonight is the Penguins/Islanders matchup at 4:00 PM Pacific time. The Islanders have been better than expected so far this season, going 5-4-1, and, well, we remember what they did to the Kings.
For a matchup a little closer to home, do your pregame scouting of the Philadelphia Flyers as they take on the Anaheim Ducks tonight. Both the Flyers and Ducks have struggled in their most recent stretches of play, but the Ducks have the advantage of being bailed out by John Gibson. That game starts at 7:00 PM Pacific and airs on Fox Sports West.