It looks like injured LA Kings' center Anze Kopitar will play tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers, despite earlier indications to the contrary, according to LA Kings Insider.
"He's ready to go," said Kings' head coach Darryl Sutter.
Kopitar's upper-body injury and Slava Voynov's suspension almost combined to leave the Kings shorthanded for their game tonight, Josh Cooper of Yahoo! Sports reported.
Kings' general manager Dean Lombardi was reportedly livid that Kopitar's injury, were it to keep him out of action, left the team able to dress only 19 players for tonight's game.
The Kings currently have $458,106 in salary cap space - not enough to call up another forward, according to Capgeek.com. This is due, in part, to the fact that Voynov's salary has not come off the books - even though he is unavailable to play thanks to an arrest on suspicion of domestic violence and subsequent indefinite suspension by the league.
"It's one thing for the player to have to pay a penalty. It's another thing for 19 other guys to have to go out there shorthanded," Lombardi told The Los Angeles Times earlier in the day.
Lombardi also referred to the situation as "political football."
The Kings initially supported the Voynov suspension - most likely for public image reasons - but are now railing against it after it caused them cap constraints, according to Yahoo! Sports.
NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said there was no change in Voynov's status as far as the league was concerned. He also indicated that the league would consider potential salary-cap assistance for the Kings, saying it would "look into whether some type of relief might be appropriate," Lisa Dillman of the LA Times reported.
Meanwhile, the game tonight pits the 6-1-1 Kings against the 3-3-2 Flyers in Philadelphia.
LA, led by the so-called 70's Line of Tanner Pearson, Tyler Toffoli and Jeff Carter, will look to continue their early season success as they begin a five-game road trip. That unit has 16 of the team's 21 goals on the season and 33 points total.
"Our line's working pretty well right now," said Pearson, per CSNPhilly, who scored two goals in the team's win over Columbus on Sunday. "We're getting chances to the net and stuff's happening for us. You have to ride it when you can."
The Flyers are coming off of their first consecutive wins of the season. The Kings present a difficult task and a good early-season barometer of the true strength of Philly's lineup.
"You have to play a good team game to beat those guys," Berube said. "They are a very structured team that plays a team game as good as anybody in the league. We need everybody going and everybody on the same page doing the little things out there."
"Against a team like that, if you get too cute with the puck, you don't put the puck in the right spots, you don't compete, you don't block shots or play a hard game you're going to get beat."
The game also pits former Flyers Carter and Mike Richards against former Kings Wayne Simmonds and Brayden Schenn, as HNGN explored earlier.
Mike Quick, 3-0-0 with a 1.32 GAA and one shutout in three career games against Philly, gets the nod for LA. Ray Emery will man the pipes for Philadelphia.
You can listen to the game live on Philly's broadcast here, and LA's broadcast here.
