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Preview: You again (AKA pointing Spiderman meme)

Posted on by Robyn Pennington

How to Watch

Game Time: 7:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time

TV: Fox Sports West

Radio: iHeart Radio

The Opposition: Second City Hockey

What to Watch

  • The floundering Los Angeles Kings struggled big time to contain the red hot Vancouver Canucks and their penalty kill was the scariest part of that Halloween-eve game.
  • The Chicago Blackhawks have had their own ups and downs this season but they flourished when they faced Los Angeles for the first time this season a week ago.
  • Todd McLellan has already started tinkering with the lines and that paid off for the snakebitten Jeff Carter who potted two goals in the loss to the Canucks. He scratched Tyler Toffoli and Michael Amadio in favor of Kurtis MacDermid and Nikolai Prokhorkin, the latter of whom is still trying to make an impact in the Kings’ lineup.
  • However, both of the aforementioned young men return to the center stage lineup tonight against Chicago, presumably because McLellan realized what a dumb move it was to sit two of his better forwards.
  • Now before you go all hollering that Toffoli and Amadio haven’t done much, you’re wrong. When Amadio has been on the ice, the team attempts far more shots than they give up./

Look at that. Look how beautiful that it. The only player who has a better shot differential than Amadio is Kyle Clifford, but you didn’t see him get scratched.

  • Toffoli is suffering from the same curse as his father and simply cannot buy, barter, or even trade for any kind of a goal. Per Natural Stat Trick, Toffoli’s shot rates (that is, the rate per 60 minutes at which he gets shots on goal) is totally in line with his career average and his shot attempt (CF/60) rate is slightly above his career average. Heck, even the rate at which he’s scoring points (his sh%) is right within his career norms but because the whole team stinks to high heaven, people like to point the finger and blame him when he’s literally not the issue. At all. He’s even leads the team in creating 5v5 rebounds. So stop all y’all’s nonsense talking about how Toffoli looks terrible. (PS: despite being scratched last game, he’s still tied for second on the team with Sean Walker for 5v5 goals. If you want a scapegoat, look elsewhere.)
  • Special teams continue to haunt LA. They took six penalties and allowed four goals. In six tries on their power play, they scored once. And that was the only time they actually looked coordinated and organized. The rest of the time the team looked rather discombobulated and like they weren’t sure what to do./
  1. Keys to tonight’s game:
    STAY OUT OF THE BOX.
  2. DON’T TAKE PENALTIES.
  3. PLAY DISCIPLINED.
  4. STAY. OUT. OF. THE. BOX.

I felt that last one needed reiterating.

Lineups

Los Angeles Kings

Chicago Blackhawks

Talking Points