NHL Hockey: Carolina Hurricanes at Los Angeles Kings

By BetOnline October 14, 2019

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The Carolina Hurricanes have resumed right where they left off last season and have shot to the top of the NHL standings. Los Angeles might not be doing well enough to call them a ‘surprised’ but at 2-3 they’re probably in better shape than they were expected to be at this juncture. The Kings and ‘canes go at it on Staples Center ice on Tuesday night.

Carolina is playing their first game of a four game West Coast swing with stops in LA, San Jose, Anaheim and Columbus. I know Columbus isn’t on the ‘West Coast’ but you get the point. The Kings are 1-1 on their current five game home stand with a win over Nashville and a loss to Vegas. They’ll play the ‘canes today then Buffalo and Calgary before they hit the road again.

The Kings became one of the NHL elite by playing downright nasty defense and getting excellent goaltending from Jonathan Quick. To say that hasn’t been the case this year is an understatement. Quick has been awful in his first three starts going 0-3 with a 6.43 goals against average and brutal 0.793 save percentage. This is all on quick as the Kings’ defense has done a good job limiting opponent shots–they rank #7 in the league ‘shots allowed’ rankings at 30.6 per game. Quick will get the start here and it would be almost impossible for him to play as badly as he has to date.

Los Angeles’ salvation has been their offense they’re getting shots on goal and are #2 in that category putting 37.4 shots on net per game. A good many of them are going in–the Kings are #4-T in goals scored per game at 4.00. That doesn’t help much when they’ve got the #30 scoring defense in the NHL allowing 5.20 goals against per game, mere fractions ahead of the worst team defense in hockey aka the Minnesota Wild.

Carolina’s Petr Mrazek has looked good in his first few starts and brings a 3-0 record with a 2.57 goals against average into this contest. Carolina is #11 in goals scored per game (3.83) and #11-T in goals against per game (2.67). That’s called ‘symmetry’ and a +1.17 differential and if they keep up this solid all around play they’re going to win a lot of hockey games. Including this one. Kings have gone ‘Over’ in all 5 games this year, ‘canes ‘Over’ in 4 of 6. We’ll bet this one accordingly.