The Kings have made their final cuts of camp, sending Brayden Schenn to Junior and Jonathan Bernier, Thomas Hickey and Kevin Westgarth down to Manchester. (Would you rather watch Manchester or LA at this point? I think I'd enjoy watching Manchester more if Wayne Simmonds were down there.) That means the Kings' opening night line-up will look like this:
|
Smyth |
Kopitar |
Williams |
|
Frolov |
Handzus |
Simmonds |
|
Purcell |
Stoll |
Brown |
|
Ivanans |
Lewis |
Richardson/Harrold |
|
Harrold/Richardson |
Clune (IR) |
|
|
Drewiske |
Doughty |
|
Johnson |
Scuderi |
|
Martinez |
Greene |
|
O'Donnell (Susp.) |
|
| Quick |
| Ersberg |
The Kings went with experience over the allure of youth. Thomas Hickey lost out to Alec Martinez, who has a year in Manchester under his belt;* Jonathan Bernier was beat out by Erik Ersberg, whose inability to be a #1 goaltender actually helped him; and Kevin Westgarth was bested by Raitis Ivanans, mostly because it's easier to send him down then convince someone to trade for Raitis.
*Martinez kind of gets a bad rap because the Kings have so many good defensive prospects. If it were 4 years ago everyone would be really excited about him, but most people think he's a scrub because he's not Thomas Hickey.
Overall, I'm not too upset by any decisions made in camp. Ted Purcell won the big job, that of 3rd line winger, while Richard Clune banished John Zeiler to the minors. We'll see Bernier and Hickey this season; it's just not quite as soon as we all hoped.
It's weird, I think most fans are pretty happy with this team.. Who is going to be the whipping boy this year? I guess Raitis, but he at least fights. It'll probably be someone who's contract is expiring soon like Cammalleri was before he left, someone who is enigmatic and easily moc-
Shit.
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