Chicago Blackhawks: Post-trade deadline reactions into California

Saturday, Los Angeles Kings

With only one game on a weekday this week, the next game after Wednesday night in Anaheim is their trip to the City of Angels to play the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center. This will be a Saturday matinee game. The Kings are the weakest of the California teams. What a fall from glory. They won the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014, basically switching off with the Blackhawks and now they are far from contenders. In fact, they are dead last in the Western Conference with 53 points.

Now they had a fall from glory in the standings, but they still have the three most important pillars to a Stanley Cup contending team. They have an elite number one center in Anze Kopitar, an elite Norris Trophy-caliber defenseman in Drew Doughty, and an elite goalie in Jonathan Quick. This fact alone should make any team playing them on their feet. They can give any team trouble at any given time.

The Blackhawks should be pretty rested for this one as it will only be their second game in six days. That is decent for the busiest and most important part of the season for just about every team in the NHL. This is their best chance to collect two points on this trip, which is why the Ducks game before so important. 4 points in two games would be huge in staying in the race.

With those elite players, no team playing them can take the night off, or in this case the day off. That is another factor to this game, whoever comes out of the gates with their legs will be the most likely to win the game with an earlier than usual start time. It is 3 o’clock for us but it will be a 1 o’clock

It doesn’t matter which goalie the Kings throw at the Blackhawks in this one, all that matters is the Blackhawks storm the gate and get on the Kings early. If they do that, then they should win this game.