FSM Essential Preview: Golden Knights vs Kings- Game 8

After a week and a half of not playing a game, the Vegas Golden Knights will resume their season by playing the Los Angeles Kings tonight at T-Mobile Arena.

After having to scramble to put a coaching staff together for last Tuesday’s game against the St. Louis Blues due to covid protocol, VGK is looking to climb back to the top spot in the Honda West Division. Facing Adversity is nothing new for the Knights, but the issues presented last week are unique to the state of the world right now.

The Knights and the rest of the NHL are now having to deal with the fact that players and coaches alike can be kept off of the ice due to safety reasons for multiple games at a time. The good news is that games can always be rescheduled and the Knights didn’t actually lose out on gaining points in the standings, rather those opportunities just got delayed.

Nic Hague was quoted yesterday as saying that “We’re itching to get back to playing. We just have to go with the flow and be ready when we do play”. I’m sure VGK fans feel the same way and are equally excited about watching their team get back on the ice.

The Knights come into tonight’s game with a record of 5-1-1, good for fourth place in their division with 11 points in the standings. They also have four games in hand on the Avalanche, Blues, and Wild so taking back their place at the top is completely in their control. Tonight’s and Sunday’s games provide a great opportunity to jumpstart their campaign to get back to the upper echelon of the league and the Honda West. The Kings seem like the perfect team to begin their ascension as they have been struck with players being deemed “unfit to play” and have been struggling so far this season.

The LA Kings come into tonight’s game at 7^th place in the Honda West Division with a record of 3-4-2 worth 8 points in the standings.

They have only scored the first goal of the game once so far this season so a good start would greatly benefit the Knight’s efforts. An important part of being an elite team is beating the teams you’re supposed to beat, and the Kings are one of those teams that the Knights should beat right now. With that being said, hockey is a crazy game that can be decided by something like an unlucky bounce or a mistimed line change. So the Knights should focus on affecting the parts of the game that they have control of.

That starts with not taking costly penalties, and playing the system that the coaching staff has instilled into the Knights play style. When VGK is in sync they are constantly dangerous and have the ability to score almost on a whim at times. This was apparent in last week’s game against the Blues as they scored a total of four goals and also hit seven posts throughout the game. If just a few of those pucks had gone in it very well could have been a blowout win over St. Louis. That is why I was so optimistic after last week’s loss, if the Knights come out and play the same way I don’t expect the Kings goaltending to stand on their head like Jordan Binnington did.

The Vegas Golden Knights will resume play tonight as they take on the Los Angeles Kings for the first time this season at T-Mobile Arena. The puck drop is set for 7 p.m. and will be on AT&T SportsNet and FOX Sports Las Vegas 98.9/1340.

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-D.J. Wood– Franchise Sports Media

Follow D.J. on Twitter @DJwoody97

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