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LGD: A kingly matchup

By Adam Laskaris

Mar 2, 2017, 15:32 ESTUpdated:

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Photo via Marner93

Want to unnecessarily stress about something you have no control over while it eats into your sleep schedule? Prepared to yell at your TV past the hours of midnight? Love you some late night sports?

Well have we got the hockey game for you!

The Leafs face off against the Los Angeles Kings tonight in LALALAnd, with puck drop coming at 10:30 p.m.

Both teams are fighting for their playoff lives. Toronto sits one point in the final wildcard in the Eastern conference, while LA sits one point out in the West.

Oh and the last time these two played, Toronto lost by seven goals. It coincided with the American presidential election, which is probably why you forget it.

The Leafs

Lines courtesy of DailyFaceoff.com

LW	C	RW
Zach Hyman	Auston Matthews	William Nylander
James van Riemsdyk	Tyler Bozak	Mitchell Marner
Leo Komarov	Nazem Kadri	Connor Brown
Matt Martin	Brian Boyle	Nikita Soshnikov

Defensive Pairings
Morgan Rielly	Alexey Marchenko
Jake Gardiner	Nikita Zaitsev
Matt Hunwick	Roman Polak

Well, the trade deadline has come and gone and Roman Polak and Matt Hunwick are still Toronto Maple Leafs. Brian Boyle continues in his second. Besides Marchenko and Boyle, it’s a mostly unchanged lineup as we’ve seen much of the season.

It looks like hot streak Josh Leivo will be the odd man out, though that could change before puck drop.

Fight it out amongst yourself accordingly.

THe KIngs

Lines courtesy of DailyFaceoff.com

LW	C	RW
Marian Gaborik	Anze Kopitar	Jarome Iginla
Tanner Pearson	Jeff Carter	Tyler Toffoli
Trevor Lewis	Nick Shore	Dustin Brown
Adrian Kempe	Nic Dowd	Kyle Clifford

Defensive Pairings
Derek Forbort	Drew Doughty
Jake Muzzin	THE JERSEYLESS PAUL LADUE
Brayden McNabb	Alec Martinez

Jarome Iginla, who once signed to play for the Colorado Avalanche because he thought they’d be a Stanley Cup contender, is making his LA Kings debut.

The Kings themselves are a watered-down version of their cup-winning side from three years ago now, and are not quite the threat they’ve been known to be. The team’s scored just 155 goals through 63 games this year… but they’ve only allowed 158. Expect some low scoring hockey in this one, as LA has yet to play a game with more than 5 total goals (for both teams) since 2009.