Westgarth goes from 'stewing in his juices' into the line-up

Westgarth remains positive (photo: M. Zampelli)

By all accounts, Kevin Westgarth had a great summer. He married his longtime girlfriend and signed a two-year contract extension with the Kings.

Things haven't been so good since though.

Coming off a season where he played 56 games, roughly two-thirds of the regular season games, he's only seen action in six of the team's first 20 games.

"It's frustrating," said Westgarth, when asked about his role basically being cut in half so far. "It just gives me opportunity to work hard and just try to improve in practice and just be ready to roll when I get the call and to take advantage of opportunities that are given."

The time is now, as coach Terry Murray will insert him into the line-up as the fourth line right wing tonight in St. Louis. He's faced the Blues four times previously and has been credited with a total of eight hits in those games, second only to his stats against the Dallas Stars.

Westgarth has only one scrap in those four games, it came last March vs. the much smaller Cam Janssen - who had previously come on MayorsManor and talked about using videos on HockeyFights.com to scout Westgarth and Kyle Clifford. It didn't help much that night and Janssen has since moved on to New Jersey.

Last week, Westgarth would have normally been an automatic start in the Kings back-to-back games with the Anaheim Ducks - however, they're resident tough guy, George Parros, is out of the line-up recovering from eye surgery.

Still, Westgarth says he didn't like being on the sidelines for those games.

Ducks at Kings Freeway Faceoff - pregame primer

Tonight will be game number 103 between the Kings and Ducks.

Last year, Anaheim took the season series four games to two.

Through 17 games played by each team, the scales are titled towards the Kings - they have more wins (8 to 6), points (19 to 15), have scored more goals per game (2.41 to a league low 2.00), given up fewer goals per game (2.24 to 2.82), have a better power play (20.3% conversion to 13.6) and have won a greater percentage of faceoffs (51.9% to 46.6%).

What does all of that mean? Not much. The Ducks come in having won the last three games played between the two clubs, including the last two in Los Angeles.

Don't expect a heavyweight fight tonight either. George Parros is out recovering from eye surgery. Kevin Westgarth will be a healthy scratch.  (If you want to read a great story about Parros and a Chewbacca suit when he was a Kings prospect playing in Manchester, click here.)

Over the summer, Mike Richards was on MayorsManor talking about his relationship with Corey Perry (here) - which followed up Bobby Ryan talking about his friendship with several Kings players (here) the previous off season.

Still, don't expect a love fest out on the ice. The tension has been growing between these two teams over the last few years.

Throwback Thursdays - Interview w/ Noah Clarke

While hockey may still be Canada's game, U.S. born players were the media darlings of the recent NHL Draft in Los Angeles. In fact, there were a record number (11) of Americans taken in the first round, including the Kings' Derek Forbort.

A few picks later, two Southern California players were taken - Gardena's Beau Bennett at #19 and Emerson Etem, of Long Beach, at #20. However, long before they were supposedly putting California hockey on the map, Noah Clarke played for the Los Angeles Kings.

Born in 1979, he had already been playing for a few years when Gretzky was traded to LA in the summer of '88. His hometown of La Verne - about an hour east of the old Forum - wasn't exactly what you would call a 'hockey hotbed.' In fact, the city didn't even have an ice rink. Nonetheless, Noah honed his craft in several different places and was eventually drafted by the Kings in 1999.

After spending time with both Manchester and Los Angeles, he's been playing in Europe the last few seasons.  And just this week he left for Germany to get started with his newest team, the Augsburger Panther.  Before heading to LAX with his passport and hockey sticks though, he sat down with The Mayor for a reflective conversation - including his thoughts on several current Kings players (Brown, Kopitar and Doughty), a future player (Kevin Westgarth), a former player (George Parros) and even a rumored player (Ryan Malone).

He also talks about life in Europe, why he left North America and tells a story about one of the funnier pranks you'll hear that went down during his playing days with the Monarchs.

MayorsManor presents an exclusive interview with the original California King, Noah Clarke...

Looking back, what impact did Gretzky coming to the Kings have on you as a kid?