Scouting the Avalanche

As posted earlier, the Kings figure to have their hands full tonight against the Colorado Avalanche, the NHL’s highest-scoring team and a team on a six-game winning streak. Colorado is expected to regain the services of Daniel Winnik. Special teams will be interesting to watch, as it will be a matchup of the third-ranked Colorado power play against the fourth-ranked Kings penalty kill, as well as a matchup of the 22nd-ranked Kings power play against the 27th-ranked Colorado penalty kill. Will either team break from form? For the latest on the Avalanche, check out the Denver Post’s blog, and here is the way both teams are expected to line up tonight…

AVALANCHE LINEUP
Tomas Fleischmann-Matt Duchene-Brandon Yip
Kevin Porter-Paul Stastny-David Jones
TJ Galiardi-Ryan O’Reilly-Daniel Winnik
(seventh defenseman)-Philippe Dupuis-Greg Mauldin

John-Michael Liles-Ryan O’Byrne
Ryan Wilson-Kevin Shattenkirk
Matt Hunwick-Adam Foote
Jonas Holos

Craig Anderson

[UPDATE: The Avalanche instead scratched David Koci and played Jonas Holos as a seventh defenseman.]

—–

KINGS LINEUP
Richardson-Kopitar-Brown
Smyth-Stoll-Williams
Clifford-Handzus-Simmonds
Sturm-Lewis-Ponikarovsky

Johnson-Doughty
Martinez-Scuderi
Harrold-Drewiske

Quick

—–

After the game, you can flip over to the Food Network, where tonight’s episode of “Cupcake Wars” is Kings-flavored (pun intended) and Matt Greene is a judge. I’m told the show starts at 9 p.m. Pacific time.

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.