Randy Jones will be back in the Kings’ lineup tonight, after missing the previous two games. Jones’ last appearance came in overtime of Game 1, when his turnover led to the Canucks’ overtime goal. After that, Peter Harrold replaced Jones in the lineup, but Jones will go back in tonight. Today, Jones and Terry Murray [...]

TSN has reported that Vancouver defenseman Shane O’Brien and coach Alain Vigneault have been fined — $2,500 and $1,000, respectively — for the ongoing pregame shenanigans between the Kings and Canucks. O’Brien apparently shot a shot toward Jeff Halpern during warmups before Game 3, although O’Brien told reporters today that he was only joking around [...]

As expected, the Kings will make one lineup change tonight, with Randy Jones replacing Peter Harrold on defense. Jones and Terry Murray talked today about the need for Jones to keep his feet moving and make the simple plays, something that has been reinforced on video. More from the morning skate to come. I’ll be [...]

As you have probably noticed in the past few days, the blog can get very slow, or even go down, at certain important times. I apologize for that, and I can assure you of two things: one, it’s being worked on, and two, nobody is more frustrated about it than me. Quite frankly, there are [...]

The good news for the Kings in this series? They have seven power-play goals to Vancouver’s two power-play goals. The bad news for the Kings in this series? They have three even-strength goals to Vancouver’s six even-strength goals. So while the Kings would certainly be happy to duplicate the results of the past three games [...]

The Kings’ best line in this series so far? It’s hard to argue against center Michal Handzus and wingers Fredrik Modin and Brad Richardson, a trio that has combined for five of the Kings’ 10 playoff goals so far and, on the other end, has done a solid job so far against the line of [...]

The AHL Manchester Monarchs completed a first-round Calder Cup playoff sweep of the Portland Pirates tonight with a 7-2 victory in Manchester. The Monarchs got two goals from Trevor Lewis and one goal each from Andrew Campbell, Bud Holloway, Oscar Moller, Kevin Westgarth and Joe Piskula. Andrei Loktionov had three assists. Jonathan Bernier stopped 44 [...]

Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have the opportunity to sit down with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman for a Q&A. As with last week’s Tim Leiweke interview, I would like the questions to come from you, the readers. My time with Bettman will be shorter, so I’ll have to be a little more judicious in selecting the questions, [...]

Since the Kings put Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson on the same power-play unit, the goals have come in bunches. You might remember that the Kings have put Doughty and Johnson together, during 5-on-5 play, at a couple different times in the past couple years, but the results weren’t particularly good. What’s different now? Terry [...]

After practice today, Terry Murray said Randy Jones would replace Peter Harrold on defense in Game 4 tomorrow. Harrold did not have a shift in the third period of Game 3, and Murray said only that it was “time to make a change.” Asked if Harrold was injured, Murray smiled and said, “We’re hiding it,” [...]

All of the Kings are on the ice for this afternoon’s practice, skating the same way they did last night, so it seems as though there are no injury issues or changes in store for tomorrow’s Game 4. Much more to come after practice…

The media voting is done for the Norris Trophy, and the three finalists will be announced sometime in the next couple days. ESPN.com’s Pierre LeBrun, one of the best around, wrote today that Drew Doughty got his first-place vote for the trophy. Check out Pierre’s thoughts about Doughty, plus some stuff on Roberto Luongo… LeBrun: [...]

Roberto Luongo must be very, very tired of hearing the Staples Center goal horn. He heard it eight times on April 1 and then five more times last night, including after each of the four goals he allowed before getting pulled from the game in the second period. Luongo is still a world-class goalie, of [...]

It was quite a night for Michal Handzus, who scored two-power-play goals, had one assist, played 17:31 (third-most minutes among forwards), including 1:50 on the power play and 2:13 shorthanded (both most among forwards), had four shots on goal, one blocked shot and was credited with three takeaways. Surprisingly, the only thing Handzus didn’t do [...]

A couple notes from last night’s game… – The Kings are now 7-for-12 on the power play in this series. With three power-play goals in one game, they came within one of tying the single-game franchise playoff record. The Kings have had four power-play goals twice, most recently on May 27, 1993 in the Campbell [...]

Here’s what they’re saying in the Vancouver media about last night’s Game 3… LA Kings trump Vancouver Canucks to take 2-1 series lead Perfect storm grips Canucks NHL appears to change its rules to disallow Daniel Sedin goal Canucks can’t handle Kings’ power play, can’t win officials’ calls, lose 5-3 Nothing Special about Canucks: Penalty [...]

Here’s my LAKings.com game story for tonight, with stats and video included. Thanks for reading! Kings beat Canucks 5-3 The Kings are scheduled to practice at 4 p.m. tomorrow in El Segundo.

COACH ALAIN VIGNEAULT (on the disallowed goal…) “I think it was a good goal, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what I think. We have to deal with it and get ready for the next game. Big difference right now is specialty teams. Our penalty kill hasn’t done the job and [...]

Terry Murray’s postgame thoughts… (on whether the Canucks’ penalty killers are rattled…) I can’t answer that. I don’t know their side of it, but I know from our side of it, we’re moving the puck very crisply. We got traffic, we got shots, we’ve got good chemistry going on right now and we’re having good [...]

Michal Handzus’ postgame thoughts… (on the game…) HANDZUS: “Obviously they are going to be better next game, and we have to be better too. It is the playoffs, so you play with a lot of inspiration. We do not want to get scored on. It was not perfect, but we will take a win. That [...]