San Jose Sharks vs. Los Angeles Kings: Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 1/11/2023

Time: 10 p.m. ET

Venue: Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles, CA

Where to watch: TNT

DraftKings: Kings -220, Sharks +190

FanDuel: Kings -220, Sharks +190

BetMGM: Kings -220, Sharks +190

Caesars: NL

Sharks: 13-21-8

Kings: 24-14-6 

The Los Angeles Kings are surging right now. Winners of five of the last seven, the Kings are suddenly two points behind the Vegas Golden Knights in the Pacific Division. They’ll try to match them on Wednesday when they host the struggling San Jose Sharks at Crypto.com Arena.

The Kings have been one of the hotter teams in the league with 14 goals in their last three games. One of those wins was against the aforementioned Vegas team 5-1 thanks to a hat trick from Kevin Fiala. How did he respond the next game out against the Edmonton Oilers? Two goals, two assists in a 6-3 win. That’s how you play like a big-money player. Fiala has 10 points in his last five games.

"I'm just trying to play hockey," Fiala said. "I had a lot of chances before that, it's not as though I wasn't playing good or anything like that. Right now, the last two games especially, they went in and it's nice to see that."

The Kings invested a lot to get Fiala, thinking he could be the gamechanger that they’ve needed on the offensive side of the ice. So far, that’s proving very true. Fiala is a great complement to Anze Kopitar, who recorded his 1,100th point with the Kings in the win over the Oilers. It also helped that the Kings tacked on four power play goals.

"We wanted to win the special teams battle, and when you do against that team, you give yourselves a much better chance at success," Kings coach Todd McLellan said. "If you would have told me at the beginning of the night it would have been 4-0 in our favor, I'm not sure I would have agreed with you, considering we had 12 minutes of penalty kill. It's not a recipe for success against that team. Rarely are they going to be shut out in that type of situation, so we were fortunate to come through it tonight." 

The Sharks are in a bit of limbo, as the only thing they can actually get excited about is if Erik Karlsson can win the Norris Trophy in their name. The Sharks have lost five of their last seven and are coming off a 4-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday, so San Jose is playing the second half of a back-to-back.

Kevin Labanc had a goal and an assist, and Kaapo Kahkonen had 27 saves.

"To start the third, we get the goal early and I thought we did a good job for the most part of not giving them much after that," Sharks coach David Quinn said. "We got the big insurance goal we needed, and Kaapo was good in net."

I don’t see how the Sharks handle this well on the second night of a back-to-back. James Reimer will likely go in net, and he’ll need a great performance to slow down Fiala and co. I don’t see how that works. The Sharks are 15-5 in the last 20 in Los Angeles, but there wasn’t that much of a gap in terms of competitiveness. Kings 5, Sharks 3

Kings are 76-92 at home in January since 1996.

Sharks are 2-12 against division opponents this season.

Kings are 70-62 in all games the last two seasons.

Timo Meier -- Tomas Hertl -- Kevin Labanc

Matt Nieto -- Logan Couture -- Alexander Barabanov

Nick Bonino -- Nico Sturm -- Michael Eyssimont

Oskar Lindblom -- Steven Lorentz -- Jonah Gadjovich

Jaycob Megna -- Erik Karlsson

Nick Cicek -- Marc-Edouard Vlasic

Matt Benning -- Mario Ferraro

James Reimer

Quinton Byfield -- Anze Kopitar -- Adrian Kempe

Alex Iafallo -- Phillip Danault -- Viktor Arvidsson

Kevin Fiala -- Blake Lizotte -- Gabriel Vilardi

Brendan Lemieux -- Rasmus Kupari -- Jaret Anderson-Dolan

Mikey Anderson -- Drew Doughty

Sean Durzi -- Matt Roy

Alexander Edler -- Sean Walker

Pheonix Copley