The Los Angeles Kings (22-17-13) look to respond after suffering a tough loss Thursday afternoon against the Buffalo Sabres as they continue their road trip against the Philadelphia Flyers (24-20-9).
It’s the first meeting between the two teams this season, and both clubs enter the matchup needing points, especially the Flyers, who are 2-8-1 in their last nine games after a 22-12-7 start.
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Start Time and TV Schedule
When: 9:30 a.m. PT, Jan. 31
Where: Xfinity Mobile Arena
Watch: FanDuel Sports Network
Kings Projected Lineup
Corey Perry – Alex Laferriere – Adrian Kempe
Trevor Moore – Quinton Byfield – Warren Foegele
Kevin Fiala – Joel Armia – Andrei Kuzmenko
Kenny Connors – Samuel Helenius – Taylor Ward
Mikey Anderson – Drew Doughty
Joel Edmundson – Brandt Clarke
Brian Dumoulin – Cody Ceci
Darcy Kuemper
Anton Forsberg
Flyers Projected Lineup
Nikita Grebenkin – Christian Dvorak – Travis Konecny
Denver Barkey – Noah Cates – Owen Tippett
Matvei Michkov – Trevor Zegras – Bobby Brink
Nicolas Deslauriers – Sean Couturier – Garnett Hathaway
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Travis Sanheim – Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York – Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler – Noah Juulsen
Dan Vladar
Samuel Ersson
The Kings’ last outing was one they’ll want to forget. Defesnive breakdowns, missed assignments in transition, and a lack of aggression to start from opening tap plaugued them for the entire game.
Critical Call Dooms Kings To 4-1 Loss Against The Buffalo Sabres
It’s a loss they need to quickly forget and move on from. The Sabres are one of the hottest teams in hockey right now, so the loss was accepted, but it was how they lost. Now heading into Philadelphia against a Flyers team that’s struggled mightily recently with consistency and is 0-5 in their last home games, the last one coming on Jan. 6, nearly three weeks ago.
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The Flyers rank near the bottom in both offense and defense this season, and they are also playing their third game in four nights, while the Kings had a lot of rest before playing the Red Wings and Sabres.
It’s the perfect opportunity for the Kings to reset against a struggling team and close out this stretch of the six-game road trip on a positive note. The Kings’ defense has struggled in their last ten games, and the offense has been up and down, but the team has relied heavily on its depth scoring recently, and it’s been very effective at times.
Philadelphia, meanwhile, has been one of the worst defensive teams in this nine-game stretch, going 2-8-1. They’ve held their opponents to just one goal twice in this stretch and have given up a total of 49 goals while scoring 26 goals, so Los Angeles has to take advantage of that defense and get the easy win.
Injuries
For the Kings’ injury report, Anze Kopitar (upper body) and Alex Turcotte (upper body) are listed as out.
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The Flyers are expected to be without Tyson Foerster (arm) and Rodrigo Abols (lower body).
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