Canucks at Kings NYE primer with Doughty, Johnson, Stoll

Vancouver come to town tonight with a 15-3-1 record in their last 19 games. LA’s home team has gone 3-0-2 in the Sutter Era and is looking to continue their climb back up the Western Conference standings.

The Canucks are a team that have given the Kings fits at times recently, including bouncing them from the playoffs two years ago. In their only other meeting this season, the Canucks beat the Kings 3-2 at Staples Center – in a game Drew Doughty scored a goal.

The talented defenseman has had his own challenges with the Canucks, posting a minus-9 rating against them since entering the league in 2008 (his worst against any team in the league) and has picked up 34 penalty minutes in those games (more than double his total against every team other than Anaheim…plus, if you take out the 10 minute misconduct assessed to him last March vs. the Canucks, the 24 minutes are still more than he has vs. any other team).

With a look ahead to tonight’s action, here are some exclusive pre-game comments from Doughty, Jack Johnson and Jarret Stoll…

Doughty on the Canucks – “It’s going to be a fun game. Every time we play Vancouver all the guys are really pumped for the game. As a team, we had a hard battle with them in the playoffs a couple of years ago. We’re still disappointed about that loss. So, I think it’s going to be a hard fought game with lots of checking and lots of chirping.”

Johnson on being ‘up’ for the game vs. Vancouver – “We’re up every night. Just because it’s Vancouver it’s not going to change anything, compared to our approach to any other game.”

Stoll on the Canucks – “They’re playing well. They’re winning some games. They’ve been really hot of late, the last month and half. We just need a good solid game. We need to do a good job at checking. Defensively, we’ve been pretty sound lately. We have to have that type of game again, but – obviously – score some goals. It’s going to be a good game. It’s going to be a battle. They’re always good games against Vancouver. We need to bring the emotion and energy and have some fun.”

Game time is 7pm tonight.

For more player quotes and the stories of the week, please see the related articles below.

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