Four Kings play Word Association with Coyotes leaders

Three games into the Kings' six-game season series with the Coyotes it's been exactly what you'd expect from two division rivals - tight, close battles. They split a pair of games in October, with the Kings shutting out the Coyotes 2-0 in the first contest and losing 3-2 in a shootout a little over a week later.

Both those games were in Phoenix. Then, the day after Christmas, Staples Center hosted game three and the Kings won 4-3 - getting two goals from their defensemen (Rob Scuderi and Willie Mitchell), a rare site this year.

With a look ahead to tonight's game, we asked a few of the Kings to play word association using the names of four Coyotes players they know well - long-time captain Shane Doan (a Kings killer throughout his career), Ray Whitney (leading the 'Yotes with 35 points...and 15 career goals vs. LA, his most against any Western Conference team), Keith Yandle (leads all Phoenix defensemen with 24 points) and Derek Morris (has played 63 career games vs LA).

Here were the answers...

from Dustin Brown

Doan - Physical
Whitney - Magical
Yandle - White stick
Morris - Big

Kings at Coyotes - what to watch for w/ Justin Williams

Over the last few seasons, the Phoenix Coyotes have given the Kings fits, largely because of two guys - goalie Ilya Bryzgalov and captain Shane Doan.

The two teams split their season series last year 3-3.

With the help of Justin Williams, Jonathan Quick and Dustin Penner here are some things to watch for tonight when the Kings and Coyotes meet up for the first meeting this season...

- Goaltending:  Williams on Bryzgalov now playing in Philadelphia - "That's a huge loss for them. I always thought he was one of the best goalies in the league. Whenever we played against them, he was always square to the target and he'd never go down unnecessarily and he kept us guessing."

- More on the goaltending:  Quick on Bryzgalov's replacement, Mike Smith (who stopped 54 of the 56 shots in his last two games against the Kings, when he was with Tampa Bay) - "Smith is the wild card. But, we have guys here that were in the East last year, like Gags [Simon Gagne], who I'm sure knows him pretty well. So, he'll be able to help out on that front."

- Outnumbered attacks: Quick added, "They always have four guys up on the rush, they're a really good transition team. They have guys like (Keith) Yandle jumping in and they're good at creating stuff in the offensive zone."