Tonight marks the home season opener for the 2007 Stanley Cup champs Anaheim Ducks, where they take on former goalie Ilya Bryzgalov and the Phoenix Coyotes. The Coyotes are in a back-to-back situation and the Ducks have had to time to digest their lackadaisical performance against the West’s best San Jose Sharks. For the Ducks, they must capitalize on the back-to-back game situation, by coming out and hitting everything that moves and establishing a physical and up-tempo game. Look for George Parros to initiate a fight in the home opener to get the crowd pumped up. If Phoenix dresses Brian McGratten, this should be the fight of the night. For Phoenix, look for Daniel Carcillo to agitate just about everybody from Anaheim to Newport Beach. Fantasy hockey owners pay attention. The Three Amigos, Getzlaf, Perry and Kunitz will break the score sheet tonight, in what looks to be a good goalie match. Look for Ryan Getzlaf to control the offense and put up an assist tonight, while being +1. Jean Sebastian Giguere will be solid tonight and look for his GAA to remain at or below 2.00. Carcillo surprisingly went penalty-less last night and look for him to pick up a slew tonight. He is uber valuable for leagues that use penalty minutes as a category.

The Kings and Sharks will undoubtedly pick up from where they left off  last night, which was complete domination by the Sharks. The Kings defense is just not that good. They are young and the learning curve is huge at this point. It remains to be seen if first round pick Drew Doughty will contributor be destine for Manchester. The Kings lack of passion last night is all too familiar with Kings teams from recent years. They need to come out hitting and establish a physical game early. They are a much bigger team than last year and need to use this to thier advantage tonight. Thornton will dominate the Kings young defense on the powerplay tonight and will pick up roughly 1-2 powerplay points tonight. Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings did sign a new 7 year deal, which is the second longest in Kings history to that of Wayne Gretzky. Anze is a great talent, the best home bread talent the Kings have drafted in at least a decade and he’ll need use his size, skill and leadership or the Kings don’t stand a chance tonight.  More fantasy hockey in-game commentary to come…

Night recap. Kings got shutout, Ducks lost and my predictions tonight were that of boldly wrong. Getzlaf did contribute with 7 PIMs, which was a surprise and it was Sutherby, not George Parros who squared off first for the Anaheim Ducks. Carcillo remained under control, but it will only be a matter of time for this classic NHL agitator to explode like St. Helens. Tomorrow brings a new day and more commentary.