Kings surging offensively; Carter-Kopitar aligned

Make no mistake about it: The Kings have been a strong offensive unit over the last three weeks, having averaged 3.33 goals per game over the last 10 games. Only twice over that stretch has Los Angeles failed to record three goals.

The Kings rank 13th in the league with 2.67 goals per game; prior to games on November 4, they were tied for 25th in the league in goals per game.

But for the second consecutive game the Kings will (almost certainly) be without skilled forward Marian Gaborik, who missed Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Blackhawks and remained on the ice for a short period of time following the morning skate.

That, according to this morning’s line rushes, means that Jeff Carter will move to Anze Kopitar’s right after having spent much of the early part of the season at center. He skated opposite Tanner Pearson on Tuesday morning and downplayed the position switch, saying that “other than position,” there wasn’t much of a change in his responsibilities.

“You go out there and you do the same things and you do what you’re here to do and what you need to do to help the team win,” he said. “That’s about it.”

With 10 points in 21 games, Kopitar, who has led the club in scoring for seven consecutive seasons, is looking to kick start his 2014-15 campaign. Carter, arguably the team’s purest goal scoring threat, has one tally in the last nine games in spite of the team’s recent offensive surge.

While meeting with reporters, Darryl Sutter indicated that when Carter is moved to Kopitar’s line, it’s usually because other forwards are out of action.

“The only time they play together is when we don’t have an intact lineup, when you look at it,” he said. “I mean, without Gaborik we’re pushing into our offense again. So, for sure, we try and find ways to get that other half-a-goal a game. Our goals for is actually better than it was at any time other than the playoffs last year, if you look at it. So, you know what? We mix and matched all through the playoffs, and we’ll mix and match again. We’re just trying to find another half-a-goal in there. Other than Jarret’s line, we have done that, all along. So it’s not ‘this guy with that guy,’ it’s basically after special teams, after time outs, things like that. Top guys, if they’re playing well, they still have got to play that high-teen minutes, and the way to do it is to manage clock, manage special teams and manage three timeouts.”

Darryl Sutter, on the Boston Bruins:
They don’t play a dissimilar game to us. I think they get a really good effort out of everybody and they go four deep and every plays – so when we try and get everybody to play like a King, they try and get everybody to play like a Bruin. They have great goaltending. They have really good leadership on their team. We play real similar games. I think they probably deserved a better fate last night, for sure.

Jeff Carter, on how to build consistency in the team’s game:
You do the right things on the ice and you do the right things that you need to do to win games. [Reporter: That’s never been a problem, with this team, it seems like?] Consistency? We have our ups and downs, just like every other team.