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Arizona Coyotes 2015 Opponents: Los Angeles Kings

By William Grigsby

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The Arizona Coyotes are looking at a special season

The kind the Kings had two of the last four years. We are looking at their outlook for this season:

Today we look at: Los Angeles Kings

2014-15 record: 40-27-15, 4th in the Pacific, Didn’t make the playoffs

How the Arizona Coyotes did: 4 games, 1-3-0

Schedule this year against the Arizona Coyotes: Fri 10/9 At L.A. (season opener), Tues 11/10 at L.A., Sat 12/26 Home, Sat 1/23 Home, Tues 2/2 Home

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Notable additions: LW Milan Lucic, G Jhonas Enroth

Notable subtractions: D Robyn Regehr, C Mike Richards, D Andrej Sekera, C Jarret Stoll, RW Justin Williams, D Slava Voynov

Coached by: Darryl Sutter (5th year)

Who’s in Net:

Jonathan Quick is solidly the number one with newcomer Jhonas Enroth stepping in to take Martin Jones place, who was traded to San Jose for a 1st round pick. Quick is still one of the top net-minders in the league. Almost wish we had him instead of Mike Smith, especially if Smitty has another bad year.

Quick thoughts about the Kings:

  • Although they won the Stanley Cup in two of the past four years it feels very much like a team in transition. They lost several key players although they have their core locked up for the future.
  • Milan Lucic was brought in to offset some of the losses, but he can’t do it alone.
  • The defense is a little shaky, and there are rumors that the team is tired of coach Darryl Sutter’s message, and his delivery. There is still a ton of talent on this team, you must admit. Plus they know how to win.

Why the Kings will win the Stanley Cup:

When you have players like Anze Kopitar, Jake Muzzin, Drew Doughty, Jeff Carter, Dustin Brown and the aforementioned Lucic in front of Jonathan Quick, you always have shot to go all the way. And, yes they have a shot.

Why the Kings won’t win the Stanley Cup:

Even though they have their talent core back for the team, it seems as if part of the heart of the team has departed with Justin Williams and Jarret Stoll. Mike Richards was a part of that too. There must be some disillusionment with the Richards and Voynov off-ice antics. That can do internal damage to a championship team.

Three Things We Like About You:

  1. We like the Black and White uniforms. The old purple things were okay and even made sense with the royalty angle, but the new ones are pretty cool. We won’t mention that “Burger King” Uni you wore back in the early 2000’s for one year, though.
  2. The Wayne Gretzky trade kind of opened up the South for hockey. I guess you could say we wouldn’t have a team in Arizona if it weren’t for Gretzky spreading the sport, and making it more popular.
  3. The games between us are always hard fought (I mean fisticuffs hard fought), and it’s not difficult for the players to get up for games against the arch enemy Kings. It puts fire in the player’s bellies, and that’s never a bad thing.

Three Things We Don’t Like About You:

  1. Please stop even thinking that Jonathan Quick is the Vezina Trophy winner each year. He’s not that good.
  2. I wonder if there is some way you can control your head goon, Jordan Nolan. He acts likes an assassin at times, completely out of control. He’s a cheap shot artist, at best. He could even fill-in for one of the Hanson brothers in the movie “Slapshot.”
  3. This would be a perfect time to mention all of the “off-the-ice” problems you’ve had and how “incredibly” well you’ve handled it. But we won’t…or did we just do it? You need a scorecard to tell who’s in jail, or in court for whatever offense they’re been accused of committing.
  4. Oh yeah, let’s amend that to four, I could go longer too, but won’t. We STILL remember the nasty cheap shot by Dustin Brown on Michal Rozsival’s knee. Just watch as a guy like John Scott remind Brown in the first game this season.

Prediction:

It is so difficult to not pick the Kings for the playoffs with all of the talent on this team. We are going to do just that, though. The defense has more holes than swiss cheese, and the heart seems to be torn from this team. They will probably sneak into the last spot, win a bunch of game sevens and get in the finals, but we doubt it. No really we do…

Next: Arizona Coyotes Max Domi's Shot At Calder Trophy

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