Kings staying with same lineup?

As noted earlier, the Kings used the same lines and pairs in practice today that they used in Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Carolina. Does that mean the lineup will look the same tomorrow against Tampa Bay. Not necessarily — this is Darryl Sutter, after all — but that would be the smart bet. The likelihood of that increases because it seems that Sutter was generally pleased with the effort the Kings gave in Carolina, other than, you know, not scoring.

SUTTER: “I thought we pretty much controlled the game. It was disappointing that we didn’t get something out of it. That’s what we told the players after. We did everything you want on the road. We had a good start, scored a power-play goal, killed penalties, dominated faceoffs, spent most of the time in their zone… It was a tough loss for team, because we didn’t feel like we lost.’’

Sutter was also asked specifically about the two players who went into the lineup that night. Andrei Loktionov didn’t have a shot on goal — he had two attempts blocked — in nine-plus minutes. Alec Martinez had a blocked shot that led to Carolina’s first goal, and had one shot on goal in 13-plus minutes.

SUTTERL: “They were fine. It’s just that Carolina is a different kind of team than St. Louis. That’s a fact. So you try to adjust your lineup a little bit. St. Louis is a big, heavy team. Carolina is a quick team.’’

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.