The Los Angeles Kings have gotten a player back from injury, as forward Brendan Lemieux has been activated off of injured reserve.
Lemieux has missed the Kings’ last 23 games with a lower-body injury. Lemieux has played in 15 games this season and scored three points to go along with 28 minutes spent in the box.
Adding Lemieux back to their active roster gives the Kings a player from what now seems to be a dying breed across the NHL. While Lemieux has flashed some offensive touch in the past (he scored 43 points in 51 AHL games in 2017-18) his time playing in the NHL has established him as one of the league’s few pure agitators.
Lemieux’s calling card is getting under his opponent’s skin, disrupting their control over a game, and playing with the sort of energy and physicality that would make any opponent fear facing his line on a shift. As more and more NHL clubs decide they don’t need to devote a roster spot to a player with such a relatively limited package of tools, players like Lemieux are becoming rarer and rarer across the NHL.
But Kings coach Todd McLellan has deemed Lemieux an important piece in the team’s bottom six, and with this activation, Lemieux will have a chance to return to his spot there.
And even while players like Lemieux seem to be becoming more of a rare sight in this modern NHL, the Kings do happen to stand second in the Pacific Division, making it somewhat difficult to criticize McLellan’s decisions regarding his lineup.
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