NHL Picks: It is opening night in the NHL on Wednesday with four games on the schedule including the defending Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings raising their Stanley Cup banner as they host the San Jose Sharks on NBCSN. The game will likely bring back bad memories for the Sharks who blew a 3-0 series lead last year to the Kings. Let’s look at Wednesday’s opener and NHL picks.
Sharks Trying to Look Past a Historic Collapse
The San Jose Sharks blew a 3-0 series lead last season to the Los Angeles Kings in the playoffs, becoming just the fourth team in NHL history to blow a 3-0 series lead and lose. The team is trying to put last year behind them as they start fresh in 2014. “Last year is over with,” forward Tommy Wingels said. “People are going to want to talk about it, we’re going to want to think about it, but you need to eliminate it from your memory because it’s over with. Our focus is on the start here and getting off to a good start.”
Not everything is the same for the Sharks as they stripped the captaincy from Joe Thornton and took away the alternate captaincy from Patrick Marleau. Too bad for the Sharks they just didn’t get rid of both players. Thornton has been a really good player in the regular season but he and Marleau don’t get the job done in the playoffs. The Sharks have plenty of talented players from Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski to Brent Burns and Antti Niemi. What they don’t have is a Stanley Cup.
Kings Ready for another Stanley Cup Run
The Los Angeles Kings have virtually everyone back from last year’s team that won the Stanley Cup. The Kings have won the title in two of the past three years so there was little reason to change. They have one of the best goaltenders in the world in Jonathan Quick, a deep and big group of forwards and a solid defense. They will be home favorites in this season opener on Wednesday.
Game Notes
This has been a home team dominated series as the Kings have taken 9 of the last 10 in Los Angeles. Three of the past five in the series in Los Angeles have gone over the total.
NHL Picks
We’ll go with the Kings to win their season opener on Wednesday night.
