Sharks at Kings
The San Jose Sharks will try to shrug off a dull effort with their shiny new toy Friday night when they visit the Los Angeles Kings, who play their season opener. San Jose lost to Anaheim 5-2 on Wednesday night, kicking off a campaign filled with high expectations as two-time Norris Trophy winning defenseman Erik Karlsson was a minus-2 in his club debut.
"We did a lot of good things," Sharks coach Peter DeBoer told reporters. "The result wasn't there, and I know everyone is disappointed. Everyone wants to start out with a great win in front of our home crowd. We did a lot of good things, but obviously there are some areas we need to clean up too. It's that time of year. You get to know your team. ..." Los Angeles' roster features nine players 30 years or older after the signing of Ilya Kovalchuk, 35, who scored 417 goals in the NHL from 2001-2013 before scoring 138 over the last five-plus seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League. “He really wants to win,” Kings president Luc Robitaille told the Los Angeles Times about Kovalchuk, who is 18th all-time at 0.51 goals per game. “That’s very important. He has an opportunity to be one of the few guys in sports that can be in the triple gold club (having won) the world championships, Olympics (gold) and a Stanley Cup. He’s hungry to have an opportunity. The hole he’s going to fill, he can really help us win. But at the same time, he can be himself and play his game.” Kovalchuk skated on a line in preseason centered by Anze Kopitar, a finalist for the 2018 Hart and Selke trophies who recorded career highs of 35 goals and 92 points last season.
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, NBCS California (San Jose), FS West (Los Angeles)
ABOUT THE SHARKS (0-1-0): Antti Suomela made his NHL debut Wednesday, centering the third line with Evander Kane and Joonas Donskoi on the wings, with Kane scoring San Jose's first goal of the season. Joe Thornton played his first game since Jan. 23 and the 39-year-old, who shaved his signature bushy beard, played 17 minutes, 42 seconds and won 5 of 7 faceoffs. Martin Jones, who is 9-3-2 with a 2.06 goals-against average and .931 save percentage versus the Kings (his former team), is expected to start in goal with DeBoer telling reporters: “You know what, we’ll see. I haven’t made any decisions yet, but my gut would say, we’re going into L.A., I’m assuming he’s going to play.”
ABOUT THE KINGS (2017-18: 45-29-8): Los Angeles hopes for a healthy season from Jeff Carter (352 career goals), who played only 27 games last season and scored 13 goals after averaging 27.4 over the previous five campaigns. Drew Doughty (422 points, plus-94 in 770 career games), who won the 2016 Norris and was a finalist last season, returns to spearhead a defense that also highlights Alec Martinez. Two-time Stanley Cup champion goaltender Jonathan Quick, 32, is 15-11-5 with a 2.52 GAA and .910 save percentage in 33 games versus the Sharks - 1-2, 1.70, .944 in three contests last season.
OVERTIME
1. Kings RW Dustin Brown (28 goals, 61 points in 2017-18), who joined Kopitar and Kovalchuk on the top line during the preseason, is out indefinitely after breaking a finger in a preseason game versus Anaheim on Saturday.
2. The addition of Karlsson (NHL-most 518 points among defensemen since joining league in 2009-10) figures to eventually help the Sharks' power play, which went 0-for-3 on Wednesday after struggling in the preseason.
3. Both teams were eliminated by Vegas in the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs with the Kings getting swept in the first round and the Sharks going down in six games in the Pacific Division final.