Los Angeles Kings @ St. Louis Blues
Time: 5:30 Pacific
TV: NBCSN
Enemy Reading: St. Louis Game Time
Gaborik-Kopitar-Lewis
Lucic-Carter-Toffoli
Pearson-Shore-Brown
Clifford-Andreoff-Nolan
McNabb-Doughty
Muzzin-Martinez
Forbort-Ehrhoff
Enroth
(Quick)
Scratched: McBain, Weal Injured: Greene, King
St. Louis Blues
Steen-Lehtera-Tarasenko
Upshall-Backes-Brouwer
Fabbri-Jaskin-Rattie
Ott-Brodziak-Reaves
Bouwmeester-Pietrangelo
Gunnarsson-Parayko
Edmundson-Bortuzzo
Injured: Shattenkirk, Schwartz, Stastny. Scratched: Gomez
Stats & Such
(Small sample size warning. Fancy stats courtesy War on Ice)
| Team | Kings | Blues |
| Record | 7-4-0 | 8-2-1 |
| Points | 14 | 17 |
| Division Rank | 2nd | 2nd |
| Streak | Lost 1 | Won 3 |
| Goals For/Game | 2.36 | 2.73 |
| Goals Against/Game | 2.27 | 2.09 |
| ES Goal % | 46.7 | 62.9 |
| ES Shot % | 52.0 | 59.0 |
| ES PDO | 98.7 | 101.1 |
| ES Corsi % | 55.4 | 56.3 |
| ES Fenwick % | 54.3 | 58.0 |
| ES Scoring Chance % | 53.3 | 59.2 |
| ES High-Danger SC % | 50.3 | 61.8 |
| Power Play % (Rank) | 17.1 (18th) | 10.5 (29th) |
| Penalty Kill % (Rank) | 83.3 (11th) | 83.3 (12th) |
| Starting Goalie (tonight) | Enroth | Allen |
| Goalie Record | 1-0-0 | 4-2-0 |
| Save % | .975 | .929 |
| ES Save % | .966 | .937 |
Notes:
- So last night could have gone better. Not to worry though, the Kings get a chance to get right back on the horse again! Against….easily the best team in the league so far. On a road back-to-back. Yeah. Lucky us.
- If you, like me, were kind of expecting a step back from the Perennial Regular Season Champions following their latest postseason collapse against the Wild, well, you were wrong. We were both wrong. Together. Let that comfort you in your moment of need.
- The Blues haven’t just shot out of the gate, they’ve shot out of a cannon powerful enough to launch them through our atmosphere and into deep space. They’re 8-2-1, first of all, which is a pretty damn great record (only good for 2nd in the Central though, because of course it is). They’re the only team with a better Corsi percentage than the Kings, and they’ve got a frankly ridiculous 58% Fenwick at evens so far. That’s unlikely to last, but these guys just own the puck right now, and no one else really even comes close. There’s no stat you don’t like if you’re a Blues fan (well, except for power play % I guess, but who really cares about that honestly)- they’re dominating in scoring chances too, their goaltending has been good when called upon, and it all adds up to the Blues scoring nearly 63% of all goals at even strength.
- Even more impressive perhaps is how the Blues are putting up all these numbers while dealing with some pretty significant injuries, as you may have seen above. The Blues will be without star defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk for the ninth straight game, and they’re also missing key forwards Paul Stastny and Jaden Schwartz. It looked for a little while like Russian dynamo Vladimir Tarasenko might miss tonight’s game as well, but luckily for them he’s expected to play after all. This is my excited face.
- As for the Kings, well, the lineup you see above can best be described as my educated guess. The Kings had no morning skate today and Darryl Sutter really put that line jumbler in action last night (at one point I saw Kyle Clifford on the top line with Kopitar and Gaborik, because why the hell not), so yeah, who really knows. I’ll go ahead and put my money on Top Line Trevor starting off there tonight, but we won’t know for sure until puck drop more than likely.
- Also, I haven’t seen anything on whether or not Jamie McBain is rejoining the team after he missed last night’s game to welcome his Jeff Carter tribute into the world. I would assume not, but you never know I guess.
- Jake Allen gets his fourth straight start in net for the Blues. Meanwhile, I would assume it’s Enroth getting his second start of the year for the Kings; while Darryl has been known to play Quick in both games of a back-to-back before, that’s usually when Quick is coming off a good game, and I doubt his performance against Chicago last night really qualifies.
- In today’s edition of which Mega Man villain are you, opposing team, let’s find out which Robot Master is up to the task of representing the Blues. Of course, it has to be either a water- or ice-themed evil robot (because blue, duh), and luckily for us there’s only, like, a million of those. But I have narrowed this selection down to:
Chill Man!!! Chill Man is the latest of many, many, many ice-based Mega Man villains, as he’s one of the bosses of 2010’s Mega Man 10. Mega Man 10 was the follow-up to 2008’s Mega Man 9; both games were download-only releases on all the major game consoles of the time, designed to look and feel just like the 1-6 NES games (and they almost completely ignore the SNES 7 & PS1 8 entries, for better or worse). ‘Ol Chilly here reminds me of the Blues for a number of reasons: first, yes, he’s blue (more white than blue maybe but just roll with it), but that’s only the beginning of it. Many people say the Blues lack an ability to “flip the switch” in the playoffs and/or “find another gear” or whatever stupid metaphor you like. You might even say they’re a little too….chill. Also, Chill Man’s weakness is a weapon called Solar Blaze, which causes him to melt. You could even say he doesn’t like it when his opponent….turns up the heat. Okay, I think you get it. Moving on. - PREDICTION: Kings lose 12-0. The strangely passionate Kings hatewatch crew on Twitter (who seem to be almost more into rooting for the Kings to lose than I’m into rooting for them to win, tbh) has a collective orgasm of schadenfreude so powerful that it shakes the very earth to its foundations, eventually causing it to spin off its axis and fall into another, alternate dimension where we are immediately invaded by twelve-foot tall aliens who enslave us all without much difficulty. Thanks, Obama.