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Game No. 15 GDB: Los Angeles Kings v. Nashville Predators (Postgame)

November 2, 2013, 11:27 AM ET [23 Comments]
Jason Lewis
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Pacific Buzz(with Carol Schram(VAN), Matt Henderson(EDM) and Jason Lewis(LA) Recorded 11/03/13





Records:

Los Angeles Kings (9-5-0) - (8th)
V.
Nashville Predators (6-5-2) - (10th)


Home/Away Records

Los Angeles Kings
Home: 5-2-0
Away: 4-2-0

Nashville Predators
Home: 4-2-1
Away: 2-3-1


Last 10:

Los Angeles Kings - (7-3-0)

Nashville Predators - (5-3-2)


Season Series

October 9th @ Nashville, Kings SO W 2-1

Location: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California

Time: 7:30 PM PST

Channels: Fox Sports West

Local Radio: AM 1150

---------------------

Leading Scorers:

Los Angeles Kings








Playergoalsassistspoints+/-
Anze Kopitar21113+3
Justin Williams5510+2
Mike Richards2810-3
Jeff Carter549-2
Drew Doughty437+1


Goaltender Stats


PlayerWLOTGAASV%SO
Jonathan Quick8402.56.9030
Ben Scrivens1101.90.9241






Nashville Predators








Playergoalsassistspoints+/-
David Legwand2810-3
Patric Hornqvist437Even
Craig Smith257Even
Shea Weber336-2
Seth Jones246Even


Goaltender Stats


PlayerWLOTGAASV%SO
Pekka Rinne4412.31.9170
Carter Hutton2112.71.9120
Magnus Hellberg0005.00.7500




----------------------

Team Stats:


CategoryLos Angeles KingsNashville Predators
Powerplay20.4% (14th)17.5% (19th)
Penalty Kill81.7% (17th)80.4% (20th)
G/G2.57 (18th)2.08 (25th)
GA/G2.57 (12th)2.69 (14th)
S/G32.6 (4th)29.9 (18th)
SA/G26.9 (5th)29.5 (13th)
Faceoffs55.9 (1st) 55.7 (2nd)


-----------------------


Los Angeles Kings Preview:

The Kings lineup is going to be in for a pretty decent shakeup with the absence of Jeff Carter due to injury and the call up of two rookies in Linden Vey and Tyler Toffoli. All signs point to at least one of the two playing tonight if not both. Check out my write up here on the Kings roster moves yesterday. Tough to say at this point what the projected lines will be but odds are Toffoli will be included on the second line and Vey somewhere on the bottom six.

With that bit of info back we get to the game itself. The Kings played the Preds earlier in the season in an incredibly tightly contested game in Nashville in which the Kings won in a shootout. The Kings are coming off a huge victory agains the San Jose Sharks in which they never led, meanwhile the Predators allowed Phoenix to come back after being up by two in the third. So safe to say the teams are coming from different places in terms of the last game. The Preds are also on the second game of a seven-game road trip and Staples Center has grown into a bastion in which opponents hate coming to recently.

The Kings penalty kill woes have been well documented as of late, allowing a powerplay goal in each of their last five games. However, the Predators have had quite the destitute powerplay as of late going 3 for their last 22. The Kings will most definitely want to put a stop to the trend of not only taking a ton of penalties but allowing teams to score at least once on them.

The Kings now sit atop the league in face-offs but guess who is right behind them at number 2? Yup, the Nashville Predators. Without Jeff Carter the Kings are going to be without one of their better strong side face off men in the game. This could have an impact on the game but if you recall the last time the two teams met Nashville won the face-off duel 34 to 26.

Anze Kopitar, Jarret Stoll, and Mike Richards were called upon to score more, and score more they have. Five games ago all three had been goalless, and now they have each accumulated two. The latest by Kopitar was a blast from the top of the circles in overtime against the Sharks. Hopefully that play is boon to Kopitar’s goal scoring. While the Slovenian has been dazzling in dishing the puck, we have yet to see the new shooter’s mentality he spoke of this offseason.

While much of the focus is going to go on the twin towers on the blue line for Nashville, the Kings own Drew Doughty has started to heat up and Slava Voynov had a goal the last time these two teams met. Doughty ended up paired with Jake Muzzin for the majority of last game, and the pairing looked extremely comfortable. Look for that to continue on into tonight's game.

Los Angeles Kings Lineup (Subject to change)

*taking a stab here…*

Dustin Brown - Anze Kopitar - Justin Williams
Dwight King - Mike Richards - Tyler Toffoli
Trevor Lewis - Jarret Stoll - Matt Frattin
Kyle Clifford - Linden Vey - Jordan Nolan

Jake Muzzin - Drew Doughty
Robyn Regehr - Slava Voynov
Willie Mitchell - Matt Greene

Jonathan Quick
Ben Scrivens

Healthy Scratches: Daniel Carcillo, Colin Fraser, Alec Martinez
Injuries: Jeff Carter (lower body)

Players to Watch: Tyler Toffoli, Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty, Mike Richards



Nashville Predators Preview:

As stated before, the Preds let one slip away in Phoenix after being up by two to start the third. It wasn’t the best way to start off the team’s longest road trip of the year, but tonight they will look to right a wrong. The Preds notoriously play the Kings hard, and they did so in the one other meeting of the year. If you are tuning in to watch a wide open high scoring affair I would look somewhere else.
One major difference to the Predators lineup will be the absence of injured goaltender Pekka Rinne who is out with a hip injury. In his place comes 27-year old Carter Hutton/ Hutton has bounced around for a few AHL teams but has finally got his break here in Nashville with their workhorse starter sidelined for a while. While Hutton was good in his first several starts, he has shown significant regression in his last two games, allowing 9 goals on 51 shots against. The Kings have never faced Hutton but I’m sure they are aware of his struggles. Expect them to be peppering the inexperienced Hutton with shots.

Patric Hornqvist has been a notorious thorn in the side of the Kings. Even though he has faced them in a rather limited 16 games, he has 10 points, including seven goals. He’s a hard nosed forward who always seems to find himself in the right places when playing the Kings so keep an eye on him tonight.

While Barry Trotz has always plead a stifling defensive game, this year it looks a tad bit leaky. With a combination of new defenders and an injured goaltender, The Preds are surprisingly bad in the categories of shots against and goals against. Facing a King team that loves to shoot the puck, the Predators are going to have to either help out their goaltender by keeping the crease clean or try to cut down on the shots allowed. This game has all the makings of a tough one for the Preds. With that in mind this is a blue collar team who makes you earn every inch of ice.

Seth Jones has continued to progress and impress, and it seems like the young defenseman is growing in confidence each game. He’s on a struggling squad in Nashville right now but he is still making himself known as a responsible and talented defender. He is sitting at an even plus-minus at the moment and has taken just one minor penalty all year. He’s also logging a ridiculous 25 minutes a night, which is 11th in the league.



Nashville Predators Lineup (Subject to change)

Eric Nystrom - David Legwand - Patric Hornqvist
Gabriel Bourque - Matt Cullen - Craig Smith
Colin Wilson - Mike Fisher - Viktor Stalberg
Rich Clune - Paul Gaustad - Nick Spaling

Seth Jones - Shea Weber
Roman Josi - Kevin Klein
Mattias Ekholm - Ryan Ellis

Carter Hutton
Magnus Hellberg

Healthy Scratches: Matt Hendricks, Victor Bartley, Filip Forsberg

Injuries: Pekka Rinne

Players to watch: Patric Hornqvist, Seth Jones, David Legwand

Scoring Summary

First Period

11:15 - Nashville Predators goal - David Legwand 3 (power-play) (Assists: Seth Jones 5, Patric Hornqvist 4)
19:06 - Nashville Predators goal - Shea Weber 4 (power-play) (Assists: Patric Hornqvist 5, Mike Fisher 5)
19:23 - Los Angeles Kings goal - Anze Kopitar 3 (Assists: Jake Muzzin 5)

2nd period

8:41 - Nashville Predators goal - Eric Nystrom 4 (Assists: Patric Hornqvist 6)

3rd period

9:41 - Los Angeles Kings goal - Dustin Brown 3 (Assists: Anze Kopitar 12, Justin Williams 6)
11:18 - Los Angeles Kings goal - Mike Richards 3 (power-play) (Assists: Tyler Toffoli 1, Jake Muzzin 6)
16:04 - Nashville Predators goal - David Legwand 4 (Assists: Mattias Ekholm 3)

Post Game

Tough loss. However, when you don't play a full 60, this is what happens. Do I sound like a broken record? Seems like it, but again the Kings failed to put in a fill performance tonight and it bit them in the behind. Discipline again was a problem as the Kings conceded two powerplay goals, and have now allowed at least one powerplay goal in their last six games. Jonathan Quick, despite not giving up a true "bad goal" is seeing his save percentage dip back into a scary range of below .900.

There were positive though. When the Kings did turn it on they were pretty much unstoppable. For the vast majority of the third period the Kings dominated the play and held Nashville to a shotless effort. Tyler Toffoli was tremendous in his first game back up and was arguably the Kings best forward all night. He was integral in the tying goal by driving to space and unloading a wrist shot between the circles which created the penultimate rebound for Richards. Outside of Carter and perhaps Williams the Kings have very few players with that drive and determination to get to the high scoring area, let alone shoot. Hopefully Vey can bring as much energy as Toffoli did since it seems like Jarret Stoll was injured during the second period of the game and did not return. His time may be coming very soon.

Jake Muzzin also put together a strong effort and don't look now but the young defenseman has seven points in ten games and is in the top 30 in scoring amongst NHL defenseman despite playing around 5-6 games less than most.

On the flipside the Kings had troubles in their own end, especially in clearing the crease, and the bottom lines struggled to make a positive impact. Colin Fraser played a healthy four minutes despite an injury to third line center Jarret Stoll. Matt Frattin continued his enigmatic play. Trevor Lewis also played around 17 minutes and recorded zero shots on goal and struggled on faceoffs.

Credit Nashville, they didn't get a ton of shots with just 17 directed on net, but they made the most of opportunities. They blocked a ton of shots, 22 total, committed to team defense, and aside from about a two minute brain collapse in the third they left the Kings and their fans frustrated. Legwand, the team's leading scorer, continued his hot run of form with a two goal night and now has seven points in his last four games. The Kings won the overall face off battle 35 to 30 but lost some very key ones late in the game when it mattered.

It's tough to see a team so talented play so inconsistent but that seems to be the nature of the Kings right now. They rise to the occasion against very tough opponents but play down to teams they should beat. It will be interesting to see which team shows up against the league bottom Sabres on Thursday night.

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