Pacific Division rivals meet on Wednesday night as the San Jose Sharks visit the Los Angeles Kings on NBCSN. Both teams are battling with Edmonton for first place in the division with Anaheim also in the mix. This is not a good spot for San Jose as they will be playing with no rest having hosted Arizona on Tuesday while the Kings have been off since Saturday. The Sharks have dominated this series of late, winning six of the last seven meetings.
At 10:30 p.m. ET, tune into NBCSN for live television coverage of this NHL game on Wednesday, November 30, 2016, at Staples Center.
We'll have NHL odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the NHL Wednesday schedule.
Odds Analysis
The Sharks will be playing in a back-to-back situation as they hosted Arizona on Tuesday and now have to travel down the coast to take on the Kings who have had three days off.
San Jose has not been nearly as good this season on the road as they were a year ago as the Sharks are 5-7 on the road this season. The Kings have been excellent on home ice this season as they are 9-2.
Special Teams
The Sharks are struggling to score goals and the power play has not been much help as it ranks 17th in the league at 17.4%. The Sharks are scoring just 2.4 goals per game which is 24th in the NHL. San Jose has been winning with defense as they are 3rd in the league in goals allowed at just 2.2 and the penalty killing has been solid as the Sharks are 10th in the league at 84.9%.
The Kings are somehow winning games despite a poor power play that is 27th in the league at 12.1%. The Kings are scoring just 2.5 goals per game overall. “We’d like to score more power-play goals, and everybody’s looking at the numbers and at the end of the day, the coaches are grumpy when they look at the numbers, and they’re not very good,” said captain Anze Kopitar said. “We want to get that going again.” The Kings are only giving up 2.4 goals per game which is 10th in the league but their penalty killing hasn’t been that good as they are 17th in the league at 82.4%.
Goalie Report
Martin Jones is playing very well again this season after nearly leading the Sharks to a Stanley Cup title a year ago. Jones is 10-9 on the season with a 2.15 goals against average. Aaron Dell has taken over as the primary backup as he is 2-1 with a 1.93 goals against average.
The Kings are without top goaltender Jonathan Quick who is injured but backup Peter Budaj has played really well in place of Quick. Budaj is 12-7 on the season with a 2.04 goals against average. The backup for the Kings is Jeff Zatkoff who is 0-3 with a 3.39 goals against average.
Budaj made his 20th consecutive appearance on Saturday in the win over Chicago. He has the most wins in a season since the 2010-2011 season when he was with Colorado. Los Angeles head coach Darryl Sutter said he is not worried about the workload for Budaj. “The schedule the next three weeks doesn’t bother me,” Sutter said. “As far as the fatigue part for him, he played a lot of games last year (when Budaj was 42-14-4 in 60 games while playing with the Kings’ AHL team in Ontario). He should want to play 100 in a row.”
Free NHL Picks
This is a tough one to call as the Sharks have dominated the series recently but San Jose is playing with no rest and the Kings have been great at home this season. I will avoid a side and just take the game under the total.
NHL Odds: Sharks 2, Kings 1
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