- The LA Kings and the Phoenix Coyotes will meet for the first time since the Kings knocked out the Coyotes in the Western Conference finals. The Kings are still looking for their first win of the season and they'll be hoping to do that against a Coyotes team that is struggling at times to score. If you may remember, the Western Conference finals ended right after Dustin Brown, the Kings captain, took out Coyotes defenseman Michal Rozsival while on an offsides play and the jawing from Coyotes players to Brown afterward in the line of handshakes. It'll be interesting to see how this plays into tonight's game. Can the Kings pick up their first win of the season after a heart-breaker in Edmonton? Or do the Coyotes want revenge for what happened in the playoffs? We'll have to see about this one.
-Scott Gomez is expected to make his season debut today for the San Jose Sharks when they take on the Colorado Avalanche at HP Pavilion at 1:00 today. I will not be watching that game in person but I'll keep a close eye on that game and see how well this fading Colorado team does against a high-powered Sharks offense. Also, they'll need to keep an eye on Patrick Marleau. He scored twice in each of his first three games. Two against Calgary, two against Edmonton, and two against Phoenix. The Avalanche need to find a way to pick up that slow-rolling offense and its power play is not exactly helping its case either. They'll need to shut down Patrick Marleau on defense if they have any chance at winning this game.
-This is probably the easiest game to predict a win on the schedule for this Saturday. The Blackhawks are 4-0 and are visiting the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight. Last season, they won all six meetings against the Blue Jackets and I would expect that they would win against the Jackets today. Just mark it down. Chicago wins. They get to 4-0. Columbus struggles and drops back to 1-2-1, especially when this offense isn't doing anything to support Sergei Brobovsky.
-Now for the other team on the opposite game of that wild game in Edmonton. The Oilers face off against their bitter rival from Southern Alberta, the Calgary Flames. The Flames are still seeking their first win and the Oilers are hoping to ride their emotional win from Thursday's games. I'll just say this: I want Calgary to win. I do. But the pieces are just not working and it seems like GM Jay Feaster has done nothing in the offseason to really bolster this team's production. That being said, I think Edmonton will come out and show off its somewhat good-scoring offense and make it hard for Miikka Kiprusoff to keep up with it. Edmonton wins tonight.
-And now here's the game that I'll be watching and that I'll be most interested in. The Philadelphia Flyers start the beginning of their four-game road trip, starting in South Florida against the Panthers. The Panthers are coming off a bad loss at home against Ottawa, while the Flyers are trying to build on their season, coming off a big win at home against the Rangers. Since Scott Hartnell is out for at least six weeks and that Mike Knuble is back in a Flyers jersey, it'll be interesting to see how coach Peter Laviolette addresses the need for this offense to come out and produce. Personally, I see this as a game that the Flyers should win. If they want a game to get their offense going and produce for the back-line defense, they need to put the pressure on the Panthers' defense tonight. I don't think the Panthers have their offense together yet. They have all the big stars, but it's not clicking yet, so I see the Flyers coming out with this urgency and pulling it together for a win.
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