Notes from a morning skate that did not take place

It has been quiet at Toyota Sports Center, where the Kings’ morning skate was canceled out of concern over ice conditions related to the multiple power outages that have affected the El Segundo area during the current heat wave. There were outages on Saturday affecting the South Bay, as well as one Monday afternoon.

“The power was out before we left yesterday,” Darryl Sutter said this morning. “You need power to have ice. We probably could’ve skated, but we’d like good ice tomorrow. It’s better they stay off it today.”

Because no players took the ice, it’s difficult to get a firm gauge on who the fill out Los Angeles’ lines. At recent practices, the Kings skated Gaborik-Kopitar-Brown, Lucic-Carter-Toffoli, Pearson-Shore-Lewis and Clifford-Andreoff-Nolan together with Jordan Weal skating as an extra. Defensive pairings have been McNabb-Doughty, Muzzin-Ehrhoff and Martinez-Greene with Derek Forbort skating as an extra.

The Canucks showed this alignment last night: D.Sedin-H.Sedin-Sutter, Baertschi-Horvat-Vrbata, Burrows-McCann-Hansen and Prust-Cracknell-Dorsett, with defensive pairings of Edler-Tanev, Hamhuis-Bartkowski and Hutton-Sbisa. There is a chance Jake Virtanen could get into tonight’s game, according to a source, but after Vancouver won in a shootout in Anaheim last night, there won’t be a full morning skate at Staples Center that could drop any hints. Ryan Miller went the distance yesterday and has started all three Canucks games; should he not get the nod on the second game of a back-to-back set, Richard Bachman, who has a well established history of regicide, would get the nod with Jacob Markstrom on injured reserve with a hamstring issue.

Darryl Sutter still spoke with the media, so I’ll share his thoughts in advance of tonight’s game shortly.