The Kings and the Bruins meet up after Boston has lost one of the more gruesome games they’ve ever played.
Just the Facts
- The Time: 9pm EST
- The Place: Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles, California
- Place to Watch: NESN, FDSNW, SportsNet, TVAS
- Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hub
Know Your Enemy
- The Kings are 38-21-9, which is good for 3rd in the Pacific Division standings, and 6th in the Western Conference.
- Adrian Kempe has become an old grizzled vet at this point, and he seems to have slotted into the position of role model for these young guns perfectly, with a team-leading 56 points in 68 games. He also has the team lead in goals with 29 in that same stretch of time.
- Anze Kopitar sits right behind Kempe in terms of points, with 55 in 68 games played.
- The Kings’ goaltending has gone thorugh some names as the season’s gone on and injuries have reared their heads, but it seems like LA has settled once again on Darcy Kuemper and Dave Rittich as their tandem now that the dust has settled. Rittich played yesterday against Carolina, so it looks like Kuemper will get the call to face Boston; He has a .919 SV% in 40 games played.
Game Preview
Well, last night sure was a hockey game. Two teams definitely competed against one another for meaningless points in the standings.
Anyway, let’s talk about this one.
The LA Kings are coming into this one a near total opposite of the Sharks. The Kings may have inklings of wanting to do something unimaginably dumb with their roster every so often, but they’ve turned into an otherwise perfectly strong NHL team that once again is a possession juggernaut, a routine threat to drop goal after goal after goal on their opponent, and are even bringing back a little bit of speed from guys like Quentin Byfield and Alex Laferriere. Getting Andrei Kuzmenko into the mix seems to have only improved this squad who’s vibes certainly seem to be as bright and sunny as the city of angels in May. They even just put a real statement game together against the Carolina Hurricanes with a 7-goal performance.
Boston, meanwhile, struggled to be a shot creation leader against the worst team in the league.
To say Boston might be the Underdog is underselling it a bit.
If there’s hope, it’s that Boston played a really sedate game and the Kings spent a ton of energy scoring goal after goal after goal. Back-to-Backs are rough on both teams, regardless of who has the momentum coming in, and so it may end up being that the Bruins need to take advantage of tired legs that have little but playoff position to play for at this point if they want to come out the victor.
If there’s anything I want out of this game, it’s unquestionably a better performance than what we got out of the Sharks game. That was just pathetic and embarassing. I just want more than a goal and a lot of empty cardio out of these Bruins; I want them to scare a team or two.
Because the end of the season is still miles to go, and we’ve got a good long while ‘till April 15th.