Carolina Hurricanes at Los Angeles Kings: Lineups and Game Discussion

The Carolina Hurricanes embark Sunday evening on a three-game west coast road trip, beginning with a matchup against the basement dwellers of the NHL, the Los Angeles Kings, while also featuring their home threads for the entire road trip.

The big story entering play on Sunday is the apparent return to health for the Canes D-core, as Brett Pesce and Haydn Fleury have been removed from IR and are available on Sunday night. As such, Jake Bean was sent back to Charlotte after his brief two-game cameo. Elsewhere, Micheal Ferland remains absent due to his concussion, and Clark Bishop is expected to remain in the lineup in his place.

There were no available projected lines, but it is anticipated that the Canes will align as below:

Sebastian Aho - Jordan Staal - Teuvo Teravainen

Brock McGinn - Victor Rask - Justin Williams

Andrei Svechnikov - Lucas Wallmark - Jordan Martinook

Warren Foegele - Clark Bishop - Phil Di Giuseppe

Jaccob Slavin - Dougie Hamilton

Calvin de Haan - Justin Faulk

Brett Pesce - Trevor van Riemsdyk

Curtis McElhinney

Petr Mrazek

The Kings enter Sunday having lost two games in a row and owning an NHL-worst 19 points through 26 games. Despite the return of netminder Jonathan Quick, who was out injured for over a month, the Kings saw yet another injury come along that will sideline an important player for an extended period as Ilya Kovalchuk will be out for a month after undergoing ankle surgery.

Entering action with the lowest goal total in the NHL, losing one of their top three scorers in terms of points will not help, but the Kings must now hope that the return of their star goalie will help lift them from the cellar in what is the weakest of the four NHL divisions.

The Kings projected lineup is below:

Alex Iafallo - Anze Kopitar - Dustin Brown

Kyle Clifford - Jeff Carter - Tyler Toffoli

Austin Wagner - Adrian Kempe - Matt Luff

Nate Thompson - Michael Amadio - Sheldon Rempal

Derek Forbert - Drew Doughty

Jake Muzzin - Alec Martinez

Dion Phaneuf - Oscar Fantenberg

Jonathan Quick

Calvin Petersen