Football season might be over, but the Kings will offer fans a Sunday matinee on ice when they take on the New Jersey Devils at Crypto.com Arena.
The two clubs clashed Feb. 15 with the Kings edging the Devils 2-1 in Newark, but many of the storylines in that affair have already evaporated.
New Jersey star Jack Hughes had a war of words with Viktor Arvidsson, reaching infamy with his “people pay to watch me play” comment, which instantaneously became the stuff of ridicule and memes.
While Hughes, who notched three points but flubbed a game-tying penalty shot with two seconds left in a 4-3 loss to the Ducks on Friday, will be in action, Arvidsson will not (lower-body). Mikey Anderson’s brother once played for the Devils but has since moved to Toronto and then Chicago, while Mikey himself was also injured (as were Adrian Kempe, Carl Grundstrom and Pheonix Copley).
Like Anderson did, Brandt Clarke has a brother, Graeme, in the Devils’ system, but he has played just one NHL game as a forward who was selected in the third round. Brandt Clarke was a lottery pick on defense for the Kings, but hasn’t found playing time in significantly longer supply. He’s dressed in just 13 games this season, including seven since the All-Star break, when the Kings dismissed Todd McLellan and promoted Jim Hiller to head coach.
“Those first couple of games when you’re coming in and out, you don’t want to be a liability or anything out there. That’s in your head,” Clarke told Eric Stephens of The Athletic. “I don’t think I was doing anything wrong but, yeah, I just didn’t have that ability. I wasn’t sure. I just wanted to be safe here.”
Of those seven games, the Kings have won six, while losing three of the four contests that Clarke took in from the pressbox. In those three losses, the Kings mustered just four goals and went zero for eight on the power play. In the six wins with Clarke, they outscored opponents 22-10, converting at a 41% clip with the…
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