The bad news: Jack Johnson will miss tomorrow night’s game at Calgary. The good news: Johnson should be ready to play by the Kings’ next game Dec. 26th in Phoenix. The perplexing news: The Kings recalled D Alec Martinez from Manchester and Martinez is expected to be in the Kings’ lineup tomorrow night.

What makes the move confusing from my point of view? Well, for one, Davis Drewiske played much of last night’s game at forward. Drewiske has been solid all season long, and is a MUCH better option from a defensive point of view than Martinez on any day of the week. Also, Peter Harrold, who has been a healthy scratch often of late, can play D if needed and is also probably a better defensive option than Martinez. Martinez’s lone NHL game was this season’s opener against Phoenix, and he didn’t make a good impression. While he looked like he might be ready to jump to the NHL at times during the preseason, Martinez made several bad decisions with the puck in the defensive zone, and his play was more or less directly responsible for three of Phoenix’s goals in that 6-2 blowout loss. While a single game does not a career make, I can’t help but think that Thomas Hickey would’ve been next on the callup list if not for his injury.

This in my mind, raises questions about Terry Murray’s confidence in Drewiske. From my perspective anyway, Drewiske is better in his own end than Randy Jones, who seems at this point to be a permanent part of the Kings’ lineup; and dare I say better defensively than Jack Johnson has been much of the time. Furthermore, how would you feel if you were Harrold, much praised for his ability to be a utility guy, but very sparsely used this season. Would be interesting to pick the brains of both Terry Murray and Dean Lombardi regarding both of these players.

Kings at Flames, tomorrow night in Calgary.

GO KINGS!

-JS

According the Rich Hammond of Inside The Kings, Kings forward Richard Clune who impressed many with his scrappy play, has been activated from injured reserve and assigned to Manchester of the AHL. Clune suffered a broken rib during training camp on a hit by Denis Gauthier and hasn’t appeared in a game yet.

Also, a couple of “as expected” announcements: Erik Ersberg will continue to start in the Kings net, while Terry Murray hinted that Jason LaBarbera may see some time in net in upcoming back to back games. Let it be known that I continue to pray to the hockey gods that someone calls Dean Lombardi desperate for a top flight AHL goalie and takes LaBarbera off the Kings hands before he gets a chance to lose another game for the team.

The other “as expected” announcement, as I alluded to last night – Peter Harrold will be the 7th defenseman and a healthy scratch at least for the Washington game on Thursday night, and probably the majority of the time after that barring another injury up front that moves Harrold back to the wing, where he’s less of a liability.

Not a ton of exciting news out of El Segundo today but some noteworthy items, for better or worse. I guess I’ll start with the bad news?

The Bad:
John Zeilier is ready to enter the Kings’ lineup for the first time this year. I’ve never understood the organizations like for this guy. He doesn’t make anything happen on the ice. He doesn’t hit anything but the glass. He couldn’t hit the side of a barn door with his shot. He’s going to make us all wish Peter Harrold was still on the wing. Especially when we have two guys in Armstrong and Richardson who are eons better than Zeiler. Which brings us to the next item…

Peter Harrold is moving back to defense. Hopefully that means he will be a scratch. Anyone who’s seen him attempt to play defense this season knows he’s really struggled. I liked the idea of him playing the wing, it allowed him to make use of his puck moving skills without being a defensive liability. The best case scenario here is that he is a healthy scratch and gets sent to Manchester the minute Jack Johnson comes back. For the boneheaded mistakes that Denis Gauthier has made at times, he’s much better defensively than Harrold is.

On to some good news:

Coach Terry Murray is apparently reuniting the Kings top scoring line by moving Patrick O’Sullivan up to play with Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown. Kyle Calder will go to the third line with Michal Handzus and Wayne Simmonds, and Raitis Ivanans will go to the fourth line to play with Brian Boyle and the affore mentioned John Zeiler.

It appears that Murray is going to keep rolling with Erik Ersberg in net despite the two consecutive losses. Good call, I say. Neither of the losses were the fault of Ersberg who played well in both games. As long as Ersberg gives us a chance to win games, I say leave him out there.

The HockeyBums blog was circulating a rumor today that the Kings are trying to deal Jason LaBarbera and Derek Armstrong. While I would much rather see Armstrong on the ice than John Zeiler, the prospect of moving LaBarbera makes me feel like a kid of Christmas morning. It probably won’t happen, after all, who is going to take a 28 year old career minor leaguer with a penchant for giving up awful soft goals. As unlikely as it is to happen, it would certainly make a statement to the fans about the team wanting to win games, and it would make room for one of the kids (Bernier or Quick) to back up Ersberg and hopefully give us somebody reliable off the bench when Ersberg needs a rest. One can dream I suppose.

Kings don’t play again until Thursday at home against Washington. We’ll see if anything interesting happens at practice Wednesday.

-JS