Tonight is the second of four games this season between these two teams. The Wings won the first meeting, 3-1 on October 16th off goals from Robert Lang (2) and Kris Draper. The teams will face each other again this coming Saturday in LA.
The Kings are 5-7-1 in the month of December and are coming off a 6-4 loss in Calgary on Friday. The loss came a day after they beat the Edmonton Oilers 7-4. Tonight’s game wraps up a three-game road trip for the Kings, who will kick off a four-game homestand on Wednesday with the Blue Jackets.
It looks like Mathieu Garon will be in net for LA tonight. Garon missed 12 games due to a groin injury, according to the AP, and made his return to the ice in the team’s win over the Oilers. Rookie Barry Brust was in net against the Flames.
The Wings have skated to a 10-3-1 record so far this December, a slightly padded record considering six of their games were against the Wild and Blue Jackets. Their last two wins were against those teams, 3-1 over the Wild on Wednesday and 7-4 over the Jackets on Thursday. After tonight, the Wings will play one more home game (Anaheim, Tuesday) before embarking on a five-game road trip to California, Colorado and Arizona.
Dominik Hasek will be in net tonight.
Chris Chelios will sit with a shin injury, but Mikael Samuelsson will return from his groin/hamstring injury.
It’d be a good night for the Wings to get their power play going, as the Kings are 29th in the league on the penalty kill (76.7%), as Carlos Monarrez of the Freep reports.
I won’t be watching the game since I’ll be in Grand Rapids watching the Griffins with Megan and Sarah, so there won’t be any report on it.
So, how did you enjoy the Griffins?
It was a lot of fun. They won 3-0 and the atmosphere was pretty good. The special jerseys were a little odd, though.