The Hockey News' Derek Lee previews the Ducks' matchup against the Los Angeles Kings.

IRVINE, Calif. - The Ducks had an optional morning skate at Great Park Ice ahead of their bus ride up to Los Angeles, but head coach Greg Cronin confirmed that he'll be going with the same lineup from Wednesday's game against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The Ducks have only played the Kings once this season, with that game coming on Black Friday at Honda Center. The final score was 5-2 in favor of the Kings, but the score was already 4-0 midway through the second period.

"We had a pretty good meeting yesterday about the things that we can control, which are compete level and preparation. Those things that I think we have to play with every night. As I said since the beginning of the season, we're young. We don't have a lot of mature talents, so we've got to make sure that we take the energy that our youth should bring and play consistently fast-paced, hungry hockey."

Cronin said that the team was sloppy and disjointed in the first period of Wednesday night's 7-4 loss and bland in the third period, one in which the Blue Jackets scored the final three goals of the game.

"You look at the goals (Columbus) got, at least three of them were directly off of turnovers. I know the odd-man rushes––they had six of them––like three of those, our F3 got caught cheating down low they beat us up the zone."

This will be Leo Carlsson's first time playing against the Kings at the venue formerly known as Staples Center during the regular season. Carlsson played against the Kings during preseason and has also visited the arena on multiple occasions to attend NBA games, but this will be his first official game playing there.

"Going to see how loud the crowd is there," said Carlsson. "Just go out there and have fun."

Fast Facts:
-The Ducks' all-time record in the Kings' home arena is 25-25-7 (excluding two ties). Their goal differential during that span is minus-23.
-Troy Terry is coming off consecutive three-point games. He has eight points in his last four games.
-John Gibson's career record against the Kings is 14-12-0 in 27 games with a .912 SV% and 2.61 GAA.

Ducks Projected Lines

Adam Henrique - Leo Carlsson - Alex Killorn
Frank Vatrano - Mason McTavish - Troy Terry
Isac Lundeström - Ryan Strome - Jakob Silfverberg
Ross Johnston - Sam Carrick - Max Jones

Urho Vaakanainen - Cam Fowler
Pavel Mintyukov - Ilya Lyubushkin
Jackson LaCombe - Radko Gudas

John Gibson

Kings Projected Lines

Blake Lizotte - Anze Kopitar - Adrian Kempe
Trevor Moore - Phillip Danault - Kevin Fiala
Alex Laferriere - Pierre-Luc Dubois - Quinton Byfield
Trevor Lewis - Alex Turcotte - Arthur Kaliyev

Vladislav Gavrikov - Drew Doughty
Brandt Clarke - Matt Roy
Andreas Englund - Jordan Spence

David Rittich