Jhonas Enroth Will Start In Goal For Kings On Thursday
Los Angeles Kings backup goalie Jhonas Enroth will get his third start of the season on Thursday night as the team hosts the New York Islanders. He’d certainly like to get more playing time but that’s tough behind the Kings’ starting goalie, Jonathan Quick. Enroth has definitely made a compelling case when he gets an opportunity this season–in his previous two assignments he’s gone 2-0-0 with a 0.50 goals against average and a 0.984 save percentage.
In the past, Enroth has had trouble staying sharp due to long layoffs between starts. He credits Kings’ goalies coach Bill Ranford with helping him improve: “He’s been great. He’s been pointing out a couple of things that made a lot of sense to me and some small things that we’ve been working on since training camp and I’m feeling pretty good about it. So he’s been great, and obviously his track record has been pretty good too with a couple of the goalies here that he mentored, pushed them to another level.”
Islanders head coach Jack Capuano confirmed that Jaroslav Halak would get the assignment for the Islanders. He’s also going to stand pat with the same 18 skaters that won in the Isles’ last game, a 4-2 victory at San Jose: “When you go through a drought like that, it’s good to switch it up. We did it on special teams as well, and it sparks your team. I thought [de Haan and Hamonic] were playing well up until that point too. Again, you have a big, strong guy with a puck-moving guy on each side of those pairings.”
These teams haven’t played much in recent years due to the NHL’s conference centric scheduling formula. The Kings have won 3 of the last 4 meetings head to head though they’ve split the last two contests at the Staples Center. The Kings have been playing great hockey since a slow start to the season, winning 9 of their last 12 games. The Islanders have struggled of late with only two wins in their last seven games. The Islanders have one more game on their Western road trip, playing the Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center on Friday.