After a rough start to the season, the Kings look to bounce back tonight against the Vegas Golden Knights.
Tonight at 8:00 PM MDT, the LA Kings visit the Vegas Golden Knights. The Kings will be the first NHL team to play two games after losing to the Colorado Avalanche 4-1 yesterday. The game against the Avalanche was rough for the Kings, as they committed many defensive errors, which led to Martin Necas scoring twice. But the Kings look to bounce back tonight against Vegas, who start their season tonight.
The projected lines for the Kings:
A. Kuzmenko – A. Kopitar – A. Kempe
K. Fiala – Q. Byfield – A. Laferriere
W. Foegele – P. Danault – T. Moore
J. Malott – A. Turcotte – J. Armia
M. Anderson – D. Doughty
J. Edmundson – B. Clarke
B. Dumoulin – C. Ceci
A. Forsberg
D. Kuemper
The projected lines for the Golden Knights are:
I. Barbashev – J. Eichel – M. Marner
R. Smith – W. Karlsson – M. Stone
B. Saad – T. Hertl – P. Dorofeyev
B. Howden – C. Sissons – K. Kolesar
B. McNabb – S. Theodore
N. Hanifin – Z. Whitecloud
J. Lauzon – K. Korczak
A. Hill
A. Schmid
After the slow start yesterday, the Kings will focus on having a strong start to the game and setting the tone early. The Kings need to clean up their defensive game after last night, as they made lots of mistakes that the Avalanche were able to capitalize on. With the Kings facing Vegas, they have to contain Mitch Marner and Jack Eichel to keep themselves in the game.
The Kings also need to capitalize on the power play when they get the opportunity, as they went 1 for 4 last night. A positive for the Kings to build on in tonight’s game is their penalty kill, as they allowed only 1 goal on 6 power plays. However, this also highlights the need for them to stay out of the box, allowing more time in the offensive zone.
For the Kings, Quinton Byfield was a strong player last night, and I would expect him to continue that strong play today. While he did not score, he registered 4 shots on net and was a major spark for the Kings’ offence. The Kings will also look at the Kopitar, Kuzmenko, and Kempe line to help spark their offence and try to get their first even-strength goal of the season.
For Vegas, the big players are Marner and Eichel. Still, the forward depth is something the Kings will have to be wary of, as on the 3rd line is Pavel Dorofeyev, who scored 35 goals last season and with him being on the 3rd line, it shows how deep the Vegas forwards are, and the Kings will have to be better defensively to walk out of the game with a win.
The Kings will need to play much better tonight in order for them to not go down 0-2 in the season.
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