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Vancouver Canucks at Los Angeles Kings – Saturday November 9 - 7:00 pm - CBC, Fox Sports West
Vancouver Canucks 11-5-2 tied for second in Pacific Division Los Angeles Kings 10-6-0 fifth in Pacific Division
The Vancouver Canucks will look to build off a big win in San Jose when they face the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night at Staples Center. Behind the benches, the game is a rematch of the 2004 Stanley Cup Final, when John Tortorella's Tampa Bay Lightning beat Darryl Sutter's Calgary Flames to win the championship.
The Kings have played just once this week—a 2-0 shutout of the hapless Buffalo Sabres. Though Anze Kopitar leads the team with a solid point-a-game pace, Los Angeles hasn't been scoring as much as the rest of the division—they're 18th in the league—and they haven't been great defensively, either. Jonathan Quick is off to a slow start, currently ranked 49th among NHL goalies with a .901 save percentage. His goals-against is 2.48.
Ex-Canuck Willie Mitchell has made an impressive comeback with LA after missing all of last season with a knee injury. He's averaging 21:42 a game on the Kings' blue line, second on the team behind Drew Doughty.
Though the Kings aren't steamrolling through the schedule at quite the same pace as their division rivals, they're just four points behind Vancouver, with two games in hand. We saw last year that Los Angeles was able to turn on the jets when it counted; there's every reason to think they'll be able to do the same this season.
Special teams could be the key to tonight's game. Los Angeles's power play is as good as its penalty killing is bad—a polar opposite to the Canucks. Whichever side can take advantage will likely skate away with the victory.
No lineup changes are expected for the Canucks. Jeff Carter is on the injured reserve list for LA, while Jarret Stoll is questionable.
Quick Hits:
- The rumour mill kicked into high gear last night after Edmonton traded Ladislav Smid to Calgary, then announced that Ilya Bryzgalov had agreed to join the team. A fake Gord Miller Twitter account then shipped Ales Hemsky off to the Flyers, though that turned out to be false. Hemsky is in the lineup for the Oilers, who have fallen behind 2-0 to the Flyers in an early Saturday game as I type this.
The moves are fascinating, although a bit bizarre. Bryzgalov has shone in the right situations—with a tight defensive team in front of him. Right now, the Oilers are not that team, and even less so after the departure of the stalwart Smid.
Capgeek.com is showing that the Oilers have more than $6 million in cap space after the deals, but TSN's Darren Dreger says the Smid deal was made for financial reasons:
Oilers-Bryzgalov discussions escalating. Edmonton had to move Smid money to make room for goalie.
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) November 9, 2013
Smid was the Oilers' most physical defenseman, but he also ranked sixth among the blueliners in average icetime. The team is high on Taylor Fedun, but is two games a big enough sample to pull the trigger on a deal like this?
As the gap widens between the Oilers and the Pacific Division leaders, Edmonton has to act now in hopes of salvaging the season. @strombone1 thinks having Bryz around should make things interesting:
I kinda liked being the only "nutty" goalie in my division.... :-(
— Strombone (@strombone1) November 9, 2013
- The Utica Comets won their first game in franchise history on Friday night, a 3-2 road victory over the Lake Erie Otters. David Booth assisted on the team's second goal, on the power play. The win moves the Comets' record to 1-8-1-1. They're still last in the entire American Hockey League—but they are a brand new franchise and have lost some key players as they've been called up by the Canucks.
- Watching Friday night's Hall of Fame game, I was amused to see Mason Raymond of the Toronto Maple Leafs square off against Cory Schneider of the New Jersey Devils in the shootout. No spin-o-rama for MayRay this time—Schneider stopped him easily, though the Leafs did go on to win.
When the Canucks' schedule eases off next week, I'll check in with Vancouver's alumni around the league and see how all our old boys are doing this year.