Oilers Don’t Have That Winning Look

The team the Kings will face tonight in their season opener isn’t the same team that handled them pretty easily, winning four five games a year ago.

It isn’t the same team that came back from a 1-3 disadvantage to dispatch the Colorado Avalanche in the playoffs last spring.

That team had Doug Weight and Ryan Smyth scoring goals, and this team still hasn’t signed either.

That team had goaltender Curtis Joseph keeping the Kings from scoring. Joseph stops shots for Toronto now.

“I’m not jumping the gun,” Kelly Buchberger, Edmonton’s captain, told the Toronto Globe and Mail. “I can’t say we’re better than we were a year ago because we’re not where we want to be without Doug and Ryan. There will be nights when things go our way, but there will be a lot of other nights when we’ll need them to lead us and score a big goal.”

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King center Ray Ferraro’s look at opening night:

“This is the first time in my career I haven’t set any personal goals in points, things like that, mainly because I don’t know how much I play. My goal, and it may sound pretty boring, is to be ready to play every night.”

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Holdout defenseman Aki Berg reportedly will play for his TPS team in Finland today and will be lost to the Kings for the season.

Tonight

vs. Oilers

7, Channel 9

Records (1997-98)--Kings 38-33-11, Oilers 35-37-10.

Record vs. Oilers--1-4.

Radio--KTLA (1110).

Update--King defenseman Rob Blake, who had a hip problem, and center Ian Laperriere, who had a sore groin, will play.