Tough Task Ahead; Golden Knights Need Better Effort vs. Los Angeles Kings

The Vegas Golden Knights are in a funk and have to figure out how to break out of it against the best road team in the NHL. The Los Angeles Kings are catching the Golden Knights at an advantageous time in the schedule.

Betting line: DraftKings has the Golden Knights as plus-102 underdogs with an over/under of six. The public is evenly split on covers.com. The line seems a bit fishy, the Golden Knights are on a four-game losing streak and facing the best road team in the NHL. This is a great opportunity for bettors to find value in the Golden Knights that is normally not there when they are playing at home.

Key storylines: The main storyline coming out of yesterday’s game was poor goaltending when the reality is the five players in front of Logan Thompson were not that good for most of the night. The Golden Knights need to not be the passengers while getting a better effort regardless of who gets the start in goal.

Expect an on-time start for the Golden Knights who allowed the Anaheim Ducks to score four, first-period goals on Wednesday night.

About the Golden Knights (21-10-5, 47 points): The Golden Knights enter Thursday’s game with the same amount of points they had four games ago and are slipping in the Pacific Division. The reigning Stanley Cup champions have two fewer points than the Vancouver Canucks and a .653 points percentage which trails the Los Angeles Kings who are at .710. If the season ended today, the Golden Knights would be in third place in the Pacific Division and fifth place in the Western Conference.

Tonight’s four-point game is extremely important and the importance of division games will grow as the season progresses.

Expected Lines:

Barbashev-Eichel-Stone
Dorofeyev-Stephenson-Marchessault
Cotter-Karlsson-Amadio
Howden-Roy-Kolesar

Martinez-Pietrangelo
McNabb-Hutton
Hague-Whitecloud

Patera

Golden Knights to watch: Jonathan Marchessault has a knack for stepping up after a poor effort by the team. Mark Stone will make sure the team is on point. Pavel Dorofeyev was extremely noticeable in Wednesday’s loss. Alex Pietrangelo and Chandler Stephenson had defensive efforts to forget Wednesday night as they were each a minus-3.

Whoever takes the net for the Golden Knights will be in the spotlight.

About the Kings (20-7-4, 44 points): The Kings are the road warriors of the NHL with a 13-1-1 record away from Crypto.com Arena. Expect to see Cam Talbot in Net who is 14-6-2 with a 2.06 GAA and .925 SV%. The Kings have eight players that are a plus-10 or better and three players with 30 points or more. Can the Golden Knights defend a team that comes at you in waves and has a solid defensive structure?

How to watch
Time: 7:00 p.m/ PST.
TV: Vegas 34 (Scripps Sports)
Streaming: KnightTime+
Radio: FOX Sports Las Vegas 98.9/1340