Red Wings at Kings
The Detroit Red Wings and Los Angeles Kings each came away feeling disappointed in their respective season openers, although both teams managed to pick up one point. Both will look to rebound from overtime defeats and get into the victory column when the Red Wings open a two-game West Coast trip against the Kings on Sunday.
Los Angeles showed some moxie in its 3-2 loss to San Jose, overcoming an early two-goal deficit as captain Anze Kopitar and Tyler Toffoli scored to extend the game into overtime. "Obviously, there’s some stuff to work on, but it’s first game of the season, so not everything is going to be perfect," Kopitar told reporters. "But like I said, it’s encouraging to see that guys are playing with lot of intensity. We’ll keep getting better." The Red Wings erased a pair of one-goal deficits to salvage a point in a 3-2 loss at Columbus, but they were almost doubled up on shots (39-20). "Too much time in D-zone coverage, so I thought the ice got tilted too much the wrong way," Detroit coach Jeff Blashill told reporters. "We got to be able to get it out smoother than that, so as a result, you're defending most of the time."
TV: 10:30 p.m. ET, FS Detroit, FS West (Los Angeles)
ABOUT THE RED WINGS (0-0-1): With three of the team's top six defensemen sidelined, 2016 first-round draft pick Dennis Cholowski was among five players who made their NHL debuts on Thursday - the most by an NHL team in one game since the 1985-86 Red Wings. The 20-year-old Cholowski committed a turnover that led to a goal by the Blue Jackets, but he also scored his first career goal. "(Cholowski's) goal was nice," Blashill said. "It was a real good job of jumping in the play and good finish. I thought he showed real good poise."
ABOUT THE KINGS (0-0-1): Ilya Kovalchuk, who is back in the NHL after spending the past five-plus seasons in Russia's Kontinental Hockey League, registered two shots and a plus-1 rating in 20 minutes of ice time on Thursday. "I thought, far and away, that was the most jump Kovalchuk’s had there, and I thought he made a lot of things happen out there," Kings coach John Stevens told reporters. "It looks like he had really good energy, so that was a really good sign." Stevens offered a simple reason for reuniting the line of Toffoli, Jeff Carter and Tanner Pearson: "Just history."
OVERTIME
1. Red Wings Ds Niklas Kronwall and Jonathan Ericsson will not play in either game in California.
2. Kings G Jonathan Quick has struggled against the Red Wings in his career, posting a 10-13-1 record and 2.75 goals-against average.
3. Detroit's loss continued a pattern from last season, when the team went 3-12 in overtime.