Fatigue or momentum?

This is the second of three consecutive games in which the Kings will play a team that played the previous night. Chicago played Wednesday night, then battered the Kings on Thursday. The New York Islanders played last night in Anaheim, and Colorado will play at Anaheim tomorrow before facing the Kings on Monday.

Does it matter? Probably not as much as some people think, particularly when it’s an Anaheim/L.A. situation. Playing in Colorado one night and St. Louis the next, as the Kings will do next week, is significantly different than Anaheim/L.A., which is practically the same city. Certainly there can be a fatigue factor of playing two games in less than 30 hours, but Terry Murray doesn’t put too much stock in it…

MURRAY: “If you’re on top of your game — speaking of the back-to-back situation — if you’re that team and you have nice momentum and you’re winning some games, fatigue does not become an issue. You just have the momentum. The rotation is four lines and everyone is contributing, everyone is excited, there’s an emotion to the game and you just keep building on it. There are times, though, when it works the other way.

“I watched the Islanders play the Vancouver Canucks and, last night, Anaheim. They’re playing a good game. They’ve got some speed. Their D are involved in all situations, on the breakouts, on their attacks, and they’ve got two veteran goaltenders that are shutting the door. They cracked a little bit there last night, at the end of the game, but overall they played very well.”