Kings notes: Play of Trevor Lewis key to gaining recent consistency

Published Feb. 12, 2015 5:01 p.m. ET

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It's an admittedly small sample size, but in the last three games, something resembling consistency has returned to the Los Angeles Kings' game.

Now home after a five-game east coast swig and ready to take on the Calgary Flames Thursday night at the Staples Center (starting at 7 p.m. on FOX Sports West), the Kings are riding a two-game winning streak, something they haven't done since the middle of December. And despite the injuries that have plagued the team all season, the pieces of the puzzle are finally starting to fit together.

"In the last two games we played a full 60 minutes and that's huge for us," said winger Trevor Lewis. "We've been checking better, using the center of the ice and when we use the center of our ice it creates more offense for us and kind of limits their chances."

Lewis has been a big piece of that puzzle. He's played on all four lines this season and is expected to remain on the top line with Marian Gaborik and Anze Kopitar for the time being. His versatility works well playing next to Kopitar and Sutter praised that line for their work in the last three games.

"It's easy, they're always open and there's always balance," Lewis said. "I've just got to get in there and get in the corners and get pucks to the net and go to the net."

Some more mixing and matching was done to the defensemen corps as Alec Martinez suffered yet another upper body injury this season. Martinez missed the last game in Columbus and while he was at the Toyota Center working out Thursday, he was not on the ice with the team. Instead of plugging in the seventh d-man with his normal skating partner, Robyn Regehr, Sutter has turned the defense pairings upside down. 

Regehr will skate with Drew Doughty, Matt Greene with Doughty's usual partner Jake Muzzin and Jamie McBain and Brayden McNabb will pair up.

Sutter said the changes were made in an effort to help get some stability back to a unit that hasn't had much all season. 

"Obviously, Martinez's injury, they're not really pairs," he said. "Drew's playing a lot, so it's sort of getting guys with him. Muzz has had his -- I think he's coming along again, so hopefully that's a good sign for him. We've basically taken him away from Drew to take a little bit of that pressure off of him."

Scouting the Flames

The Flames are five points ahead of the Kings in the Pacific Division and are currently holding on the final Western Conference Wild Card playoff spot. 

Sutter thinks that the Flames had been a somewhat underrated team prior to this season and the addition of a goalie that the Kings know well, former Ducks' netminder Jonas Hiller, has pushed them past the cusp and made Calgary into a playoff contender.

"If you look at probably somewhere just before the Olympic break, they really established their game," he said. "I think the difference in their team now is clearly they went out and got a number one goaltender. They haven't had one since (Mikka) Kiprusoff, and now they have Hiller, and it's proven. Their game has come on tremendously and it's not just something that happened this year, that's something that's been coming."

However, Hiller doesn't have the greatest history at the Staples Center. Bruce Boudreau famously replaced him with rookie goaltender John Gibson in the playoffs last season in an effort to avoid using Hiller, who had an 0-5-2 record in the Kings' barn at that point. He earned his first win at Staples in overtime back in late December and will be looking for his second tonight as he is expected to start for Calgary. 

Legends Night kicks off

The Kings' annual Legends Night Series starts Thursday night with former coach and current ESPN commentator Barry Melrose as the first honoree. As is tradition, the Kings will skate in the old gold and purple Forum uniforms, a favorite of Sutter.

"Oh yeah, I like those," Sutter said. "They look good. It's nice to get it changed from black and white. It's good to see a little color."

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