Game Day Thread
Game #73/82 -- 03/26/23
St. Louis Blues vs. Los Angeles Kings
at
MEXICAN HERITAGE NIGHT
Previous Meetings
03/04/23 — Blues 2, Kings 4
10/31/22 — Kings 5, Blues 1
**Game Time 7:30pm**
TV:BSW
Radio: LA Kings iHeartRadio app
Please remember, DO NOT post links to Live Game Streams in the GDT or anywhere else on LGK
Check out articles on LA Kings Insider Here
Joonas Korpisalo (video), Drew Doughty, & Todd McLellan 3/25 Post Game Quotes
Watch Joonas Korpisalo’s Post Game Interview Here
Drew Doughty on beating Winnipeg by playing Kings hockey tonight
Yeah, we talked about it before the game, they’ve scored a lot of goals against us this year and we wanted to tighten that up. There’s a chance we can play them in the playoffs, you never know, so we wanted to tighten that up and we did a great job and I thought Korpi played amazing in net.
Doughty on the importance of maintaining that style and approach into the postseason
Yeah, most definitely. I think that for the majority of these games we’ve won, we’ve kind of outplayed the other team for almost 60 minutes and that’s an important thing to be able to do, to take into playoffs. That’s not the only way you can win in playoffs, but that’s a big part of it. I really like the way we’re playing right now, but we got to keep it going as the playoffs approach.
Doughty on his goalscoring production here over the last five games
I mean, I definitely looked at my goal total and was like I’m not going to be worse than my first year in the league. I definitely haven’t been happy about it all year, it’s been something that’s been frustrating me and the puck is just going in, you know how goals are you know, you get hot at times and obviously I’m a little bit hot right now with scoring goals. It feels good to finally get back on the score sheet, but I don’t want to waste them all before playoffs come, that’s for sure.
Doughty on the PK late in the second and starting the third period strong
The guys that started the third, that was an important part of the game actually. Right off the bat, they got the puck in the zone and I think they might have gotten a scoring chance and they had some offensive-zone time and we got the offensive-zone whistle. That was a critical part to the game. Going back to Lizzo’s penalty, that’s one that we would’ve loved to kill off all five minutes, but our PK was stellar tonight. I was really proud of our PK, it’s unfortunate they got one goal, but when a guy like Lizzo gets a penalty like that, a guy who does everything for us, we were very determined to kill that one for him. It’s unfortunate we didn’t get it done.
Todd McLellan on the team’s approach in winning today’s game against Winnipeg
[Important] to beat any team, but I thought tonight we played pretty much the game that allows us to have success. The penalty kill got a little too much of a workout, but it did a really good job against a power play that’s one of the top ones on the road and we were able to find a way to score one on a very good goaltender. Our team play, as a whole, was where it needed to be.
McLellan on if he felt the Kings “got the engine going” right off the bat
I think for the most part we did, yeah. We were on our toes, we were aggressive, winning some races to the puck and the impressive thing is we didn’t try and extend it out and stay too long, we handed off a good shift. When our team is playing well, we can stay ahead and do that. We scored first, which always favors us, but then the penalty kill had to go to work and that’s where they got a little bit of life. Maybe they didn’t score but they got back into it energy wise at that at that point.
McLellan on the progress of this group over an extended stretch, leading into this winning streak
I think our progress is just a reflection of what’s always been there. That type of play, that we’ve been playing with lately, was in us earlier in the year but we just didn’t quite want to grasp it. We wanted to try it a different way, sometimes it takes a while to figure it out, but right now we’ve figured it out to this point and it’s going to get a lot tougher going forward.
McLellan on filling in for Lizotte after the penalty and getting the kill for him
Yeah, we talked about that. Losing Lizzo is hard to begin with, because he’s energizes our team. He does a lot of really good things and I thought he energized our penalty kill tonight, everybody wanted to kill for him. We talked about dismantling some of the lines, obviously Quinton can play in the middle, Gabe can play in the middle, Mooresy’s played in the middle, but we also wanted to run Kup a little bit more, get his minutes up to see if he could handle it. He did a really good job. We juggled around a little bit and got through it.
McLellan on if Doughty is doing anything differently leading to 4 goals from 5 games
I think it’s shooting it more, he’s hitting the net more, he’s shooting it. Interestingly enough, when you think of Drew’s shots, normally you think of him scoring with that big slapper and [now] they’re quick wristers, quick snappers, a foot off the ice through traffic, hitting the net and making the goaltender work. It’s going in for him right now.
McLellan on the pride taken from the stretch of allowing two or fewer goals this month
That is something that we can hang our hats on and that we’re pleased about. Again, I don’t go in and trumpet it in the locker room, but we take a lot of pride in that. We feel like we’ve got to protect the goaltenders and help them out, the D and the forwards, and a lot goes into that. Shot blocking, faceoff coverages, breakouts, shift length, you can go on and on, it goes into defending. That we will acknowledge and that we will keep preaching for sure.
Yeah, we talked about it before the game, they’ve scored a lot of goals against us this year and we wanted to tighten that up. There’s a chance we can play them in the playoffs, you never know, so we wanted to tighten that up and we did a great job and I thought Korpi played amazing in net.
Doughty on the importance of maintaining that style and approach into the postseason
Yeah, most definitely. I think that for the majority of these games we’ve won, we’ve kind of outplayed the other team for almost 60 minutes and that’s an important thing to be able to do, to take into playoffs. That’s not the only way you can win in playoffs, but that’s a big part of it. I really like the way we’re playing right now, but we got to keep it going as the playoffs approach.
Doughty on his goalscoring production here over the last five games
I mean, I definitely looked at my goal total and was like I’m not going to be worse than my first year in the league. I definitely haven’t been happy about it all year, it’s been something that’s been frustrating me and the puck is just going in, you know how goals are you know, you get hot at times and obviously I’m a little bit hot right now with scoring goals. It feels good to finally get back on the score sheet, but I don’t want to waste them all before playoffs come, that’s for sure.
Doughty on the PK late in the second and starting the third period strong
The guys that started the third, that was an important part of the game actually. Right off the bat, they got the puck in the zone and I think they might have gotten a scoring chance and they had some offensive-zone time and we got the offensive-zone whistle. That was a critical part to the game. Going back to Lizzo’s penalty, that’s one that we would’ve loved to kill off all five minutes, but our PK was stellar tonight. I was really proud of our PK, it’s unfortunate they got one goal, but when a guy like Lizzo gets a penalty like that, a guy who does everything for us, we were very determined to kill that one for him. It’s unfortunate we didn’t get it done.
Todd McLellan on the team’s approach in winning today’s game against Winnipeg
[Important] to beat any team, but I thought tonight we played pretty much the game that allows us to have success. The penalty kill got a little too much of a workout, but it did a really good job against a power play that’s one of the top ones on the road and we were able to find a way to score one on a very good goaltender. Our team play, as a whole, was where it needed to be.
McLellan on if he felt the Kings “got the engine going” right off the bat
I think for the most part we did, yeah. We were on our toes, we were aggressive, winning some races to the puck and the impressive thing is we didn’t try and extend it out and stay too long, we handed off a good shift. When our team is playing well, we can stay ahead and do that. We scored first, which always favors us, but then the penalty kill had to go to work and that’s where they got a little bit of life. Maybe they didn’t score but they got back into it energy wise at that at that point.
McLellan on the progress of this group over an extended stretch, leading into this winning streak
I think our progress is just a reflection of what’s always been there. That type of play, that we’ve been playing with lately, was in us earlier in the year but we just didn’t quite want to grasp it. We wanted to try it a different way, sometimes it takes a while to figure it out, but right now we’ve figured it out to this point and it’s going to get a lot tougher going forward.
McLellan on filling in for Lizotte after the penalty and getting the kill for him
Yeah, we talked about that. Losing Lizzo is hard to begin with, because he’s energizes our team. He does a lot of really good things and I thought he energized our penalty kill tonight, everybody wanted to kill for him. We talked about dismantling some of the lines, obviously Quinton can play in the middle, Gabe can play in the middle, Mooresy’s played in the middle, but we also wanted to run Kup a little bit more, get his minutes up to see if he could handle it. He did a really good job. We juggled around a little bit and got through it.
McLellan on if Doughty is doing anything differently leading to 4 goals from 5 games
I think it’s shooting it more, he’s hitting the net more, he’s shooting it. Interestingly enough, when you think of Drew’s shots, normally you think of him scoring with that big slapper and [now] they’re quick wristers, quick snappers, a foot off the ice through traffic, hitting the net and making the goaltender work. It’s going in for him right now.
McLellan on the pride taken from the stretch of allowing two or fewer goals this month
That is something that we can hang our hats on and that we’re pleased about. Again, I don’t go in and trumpet it in the locker room, but we take a lot of pride in that. We feel like we’ve got to protect the goaltenders and help them out, the D and the forwards, and a lot goes into that. Shot blocking, faceoff coverages, breakouts, shift length, you can go on and on, it goes into defending. That we will acknowledge and that we will keep preaching for sure.
Subject To Change
Kings Injuries
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___________________________________________
Blues Probable Lineup
courtesy of dailyfaceoff.com
No Blues Injuries
Former King
Brayden Schenn
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GOALIE STATS
PLAYER STATS
Click Here For More Stats & Rosters
WESTERN CONFERENCE STANDINGS
Tonight’s Poll Question:
Part 1 - in which period will the Game Winning Goal be scored? (1,2,3, OT, SO)
One guess only for this part
Part 2 - Who is going to score the GWG?
You can take 4 guesses per team
Previous Game’s Winners
Yesterday’s questions are 2-game questions, but there are more questions for tonight’s game above.
Poll Win Totals
King Of The Mountain
with 56 points:
VegasHockey
52 Points
srm1105
51 Points
50 Points
Kurisu
Rusty
49 Points
LeftyKing
48 Points
sonnyboy11
47 Points
AngelEyes
46 Points
DRice
hornman
45 Points
Bill Hicks
44 Points
John a90
43 Points
forum gold
randdog
42 Points
pray4mojo
41 Points
beady eye
40 Points
Chateau Bow Wow
DRGinLBC
39 Points
Helvetica
jammer 06
Liz4LA
SirJW
38 Points
CIrvine
TooCool
37 Points
36 Points
35 Points
34 Points
33 Points
Nyssa42
32 Points
31 Points
30 Points
hihocarp
Rogie-Vachon
29 Points
dannybuoy1
JETS GARAGE
notbob
28 Points
empire
27 Points
26 Points
Clif
25 Points
KHenry14
24 Points
JayWells24
23 Points
kingsmen93
Sevenhole
22 Points
21 Points
kingrussell
20 Points
waynet
19 Points
Dr. Tran
Shackleford
18 Points
RoS
17 Points
Byron
16 Points
Cross Traffic
15 Points
14 Points
13 Points
12 Points
11 Points
Busted Chops
10 Points
kopinator
9 Points
Dirtweazle
8 Points
beedee
7 Points
6 Points
5 Points
Dexter
4 Points
3 Points
HTK
salami
STONE
2 Points
05/29/93
jneol67
KingzLA
PuckMaster
SaltyPuck
1 Point
cokingsfan
HiFi
Ice24
Joe Laviguer
mugs
puckoff
RagBone
Rinkrat
twistedwrister
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