Kings activate Trevor Moore from injured reserve, expected to return against Blues
The Los Angeles Kings announced that forward Trevor Moore has been activated from injured reserve, and according to reporter Zach Dooley, he’s expected to be in the lineup for Saturday’s game against the St. Louis Blues.
The @LAKings have activated forward Trevor Moore from injured reserve (IR).
Moore has missed the last 11 games with an upper-body injury (along with an illness early on during his absence), although the cause of the injury is not known. The injury was originally viewed as day-to-day, but it took the Thousand Oaks, California product a bit longer than that to recover, eventually being placed on IR after a week of being out.
The Kings struggled in Moore’s absence, going 4-3-4 in the 11 games he was out of the lineup.
Moore was struggling when he was in the lineup for the Kings this season, as he had just five goals and eight assists for 13 points in 37 games before the injury. Normally good for a 40-point pace since joining the Kings, his current 24-point pace when accounting for the time missed from the injury would be his worst output in a 70-plus game season.
Moore has still been a solid two-way forward though, as he’s driven possession and prevented scoring chances when on the ice with a +0.114 5v5 expected goals regularized adjusted plus-minus per 60 minutes.
With the Kings only having 21 players on their active roster, no other transactions needed to be made to make room for Moore’s activation.
The Kings will need all the help they can get as they look to fight for a playoff spot in the second half of the season, as they sit fifth in the Pacific Division with a 20-16-13 record, and are two points behind the San Jose Sharks for the final wild card spot in the Western Conference with one game in hand, although they do not hold the second tiebreaker over San Jose. Los Angeles will look to build off of Tuesday’s 4-3 win over the New York Rangers when they visit the Blues in St. Louis on Saturday at 5 p.m. PT.