Game 3 preview: Ottawa Senators @ Los Angeles Kings
A preview of the game between the Ottawa Senators and Los Angeles Kings on 9 October 2013.
After a brief stop at home, the Senators will continue their season-opening six game road trip with the first of four games on the American west coast. The big news in the lead up to this game has been Jason Spezza's status, with him labelled as questionable for today's game by Paul MacLean yesterday. Spezza for his part expected to be fine and he was on the ice for practice today. UPDATE: Spezza will not play.
Here are the lines:
Michalek - Da Costa - Ryan
MacArthur - Turris - Conacher
Greening - Smith - Neil
Kassian - Pageau - Condra
Méthot - Karlsson
Cowen - Wiercioch
Phillips - Corvo
Anderson (starter)
Lehner
Here are the Kings lines from the good people at Jewels from the Crown. Some interesting debate in there regarding Jonathan Quick and our very good friend Andrew Berkshire.
Brown - Kopitar - Williams
Carcillo - Richards - Carter
Clifford - Lewis - Frattin
Fraser - Stoll - Nolan
Regehr - Doughty
Mitchell - Voynov
Martinez - Greene
Quick (starter)
Scrivens
Some thoughts for tonight:
- Jason Spezza appears to be good to go tonight. Hopefully this isn't something that will linger on all season. UPDATE: He is not good to go.
- Stéphane Da Costa beat out Mika Zibanejad for a spot on the roster, but can't seem to beat out Matt Kassian for a spot. A tough Kings team will wear down the Senators and we need Kassian to protect the kids and provide some leadership in the room. Also best players play.
- UPDATE: Da Costa will play on the top line tonight. He did pretty well there in the preseason. It will be harder tonight.
- This is going to be a tough test for the Senators. The Kings have not started the season well, but they were one of the Stanley Cup favourites at the start of the season. They have elite goaltending (except on Monday), a great group of forwards and a defence. Robyn Regehr on the top pairing seems to be puzzling though.
- Will Bobby Ryan score tonight? This will continue to be asked until he does. Until his next slump.
- Craig Anderson makes his third consecutive start to start the season. He was a 94.1% goaltender last year and this year he has regressed to...94.8%. Wait a minute!
- How long can the second line continue to keep up their domination? Forever I hope.
- A Kassian - Pageau - Condra line really confuses me. I don't know what to say about this.
Here are some stats leaders for the two teams tonight.
| Category | Ottawa | Los Angeles | ||
| Player | # | Player | # | |
| Goals | Erik Karlsson | 1 | Jeff Carter | 2 |
| Assists | Kyle Turris | 3 | Anze Kopitar | 2 |
| Points | Kyle Turris | 4 | Jeff Carter | 2 |
| Shots | Jason Spezza | 13 | Jeff Carter | 12 |
| Average Ice time | Erik Karlsson | 26:36 | Drew Doughty | 26:12 |
| Category | Ottawa | Los Angeles | ||
| # | Rank | # | Rank | |
| Goals For | 2.50 | 16th | 2.00 | 20th |
| Goals Against | 2.00 | 6th | 3.33 | 22nd |
| Corsi Close % | 58.5% | 4th | 50.3% | 15th |
| Fenwick Close % | 56.3% | 8th | 46.7% | 21st |
| Shots For | 41.0 | 2nd | 27.7 | 22nd |
| Shots Against | 38.5 | 30th | 30.0 | 12th |
