The Vancouver Canucks and the Los Angeles Kings meet in NHL action from the Crypto.com Arena on Thursday night.
The Vancouver Canucks will look to build on their 2-1 win over Anaheim last time out. J.T. Miller leads the Canucks in scoring with 34 points including a team-high 11 goals and 23 assists while Quinn Hughes has 27 points with a team-high 25 assists. Conor Garland also has 9 goals this season with a total of 22 points and the aforementioned Hughes leads the Canucks with a team-best +10 plus/minus. Thatcher Demko’s seen the majority of action between the pipes for the Canucks, going 14-11-1 with a 2.63 GAA and a .920 save percentage this season.
The Los Angeles Kings will try to bounce back from a 6-3 loss at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights in their last game. Anze Kopitar leads the Kings in scoring with 28 points including a team-high 19 assists and 9 goals while Alex Iafallo has 10 goals, logging 20 points while Adrian Kempe’s point total is at 19 with a team-high 13 goals of his own. Jonathan Quick’s gone 8-7-4 with a 2.42 GAA and a .923 save percentage this season between the pipes for the Kings while Cal Petersen’s gone 5-5-1 with a 3.10 GAA and an .893 save percentage.
Vancouver is 7-0 in their last 7 games overall and 4-1 in their last 5 games against a team with a losing record while the under is 8-3 in their last 11 Thursday games. Los Angeles is 1-4 in their last 5 division games and 1-4 in their last 5 games against a team with a losing record while the under is 5-0 in their last 5 Thursday games.
I get the case that could be made either way here, but the Canucks train just keeps rolling on after picking up another win and being on a back-to-back won’t bother the Canucks here. The Kings just look more and more like the rebuilding team we expected to see coming into this season and I think this game plays out true to form. Give me the Canucks here.