The Week Ahead: Feb. 17-Feb. 23
Utah Hockey Club (24-23-9) will return from the 4 Nations Face-Off break with a bang. After all but two of its players took 12 days off, Utah will play back-to-back games against two Western Conference teams that it is chasing for the final wild card spot.
Utah travels to Los Angeles to face the Kings on Saturday, then flies back home for a Sunday date with the Vancouver Canucks and coach Rick Tocchet, who coached many of Utah’s players in Arizona.
Vancouver (26-18-11) currently leads the UHC by six points for the final wild card spot, with a game in hand. The Kings (29-17-7) are eight points ahead of Utah with three games in hand.
“We’re playing two teams that we’re chasing so the message is simple as we’re coming back from the break,” coach André Tourigny said. “‘Don’t look farther than that.’
“Everybody wants to talk about the [March 7] trade deadline, but that is not what I should look at. I should look at those two games and making sure we’re ready for those two games. If we win those two games, we will help ourselves.”
Scouting the Kings: LA went into the break having lost seven of its past 11 games (4-5-2). Defenseman Drew Doughty returned to the lineup on Jan. 29 after breaking his ankle in the preseason. The Kings’ power play ranks 29th in the NHL at 14.6 percent, but the penalty kill is fourth in the league at 83 percent. LA has not won a playoff series since winning the Stanley Cup in 2014.
Individual stats: Forward Adrian Kempe leads LA in goals (25) and points (46).Center Anže Kopitar leads the team in assists with 32. Darcy Kuemper is second among NHL goalies with a 2.19 goals against average, and tied for third in save percentage at .919.
Injury update: Kuemper (undisclosed) is day to day. Defenseman Mikey Anderson (finger) is on injured reserve.
Season series: The Kings lead, 1-0. Joel Edmundson scored twice and Kuemper made 23 saves in a 3-2 Kings win on Oct. 26 in LA.
Scouting the Canucks: The Canucks traded forward J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers on Jan. 31 for center Filip Chytil, defenseman Victor Mancini, and a 2025 first-round pick (defensemen Erik Brännström and Jackson Dorrington were also part of the package sent to New York with Miller). The trade ended a long-time rift between Miller and star center Elias Pettersson. In the four February games Vancouver played before the 4 Nations Face-Off break, the Canucks earned seven of a possible eight points, going 3-0-1. Vancouver’s 101 goals at 5-on-5 rank 27th in the NHL, making it overly reliant on its power play (22.9 percent) and penalty kill (80.9 percent).
Individual stats: Forward Jake DeBrusk leads the team with 19 goals. Defenseman Quinn Hughes leads the team in assists (45) and points (59). Goalie Thatcher Demko has stopped 64 of 65 shots in February for a .985 save percentage.
Injury update: Hughes (oblique) and Demko (undisclosed) are day to day.
Season series: Utah leads, 1-0. Mikhail Sergachev scored with 12 seconds remaining in overtime to lift Utah to a 3-2 victory on Dec. 19 at Delta Center.
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— GM Bill Armstrong on Utah’s ability to stay in playoff contention despite lengthy injuries to multiple key players: “Any time you have top guys out with injuries, it’s a battle, but I love what our team did. They didn’t roll over. They continued to fight, they found ways to hang in there, and we’re right in the race.”
