November 21 practice notes, photos

Good afternoon from the hotel in Cary, where the team returned to after beating the stadium traffic leaving Carter-Finley Stadium. (The Wolfpack beat Syracuse 42-29, by the way.)

Never mind that the team didn’t arrive at the hotel until 1:00 a.m. this morning; there’s a 1:00 p.m. matinee against the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday, and Darryl Sutter and company led the team through a full practice. Everyone was present on the ice, and though there were a few caveats, there were no real changes in lines or pairings shown.

White: Pearson-Kopitar-Gaborik-Weal
Blue: Lucic-Carter-Toffoli
Purple: Brown-Shore-Lewis
Yellow: Clifford-Andreoff-Nolan

McNabb-Doughty
Muzzin-Martinez
Forbort-McBain-Ehrhoff

-Jonathan Quick left the ice first and is expected to start in net against the Hurricanes. (The #LAKingsGoalieTweetOff applies for practices preceding afternoon games.)

-Though Jordan Weal skated as an extra with Anze Kopitar’s group, he did take part in quite a few rotations alongside Tanner Pearson and Marian Gaborik while Kopitar was on the opposite end of the ice. These looks were primarily during net-front presence drills in which skaters distributed the puck up high and shifted to the front of the net for a deflection. Don’t be surprised to see Weal get into Sunday’s game, though I wouldn’t be able to confidently say who he’d be in for. Weal has been skating in warm-ups recently, so expect a final lineup decision to be made close to game time.

-Weal, Derek Forbort and Christian Ehrhoff all left the ice at relatively the same time. No one remained on for extra work. Forbort and McBain took the first rotation together during a drill that included defensive retrievals, for what it’s worth. If “Level of confidence in projected lines” still occupied a spot in the game preview, it would probably be a B- for tomorrow.

-Cam Ward will start in goal for Carolina, per Chip Alexander, which means that we’ll again have a match-up between the league’s two active Conn Smythe-winning goaltenders. More from the News & Observer here.

-Darryl Sutter quotes will follow. More to come of a beautiful, brisk Saturday afternoon in North Carolina.

IMG_7705

IMG_7708

IMG_7709

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.