Taylor Knows What a Beach Ball Feels Like

EL SEGUNDO, CA — Los Angeles Kings goaltending prospect Daniel Taylor has turned into a beach ball of sorts.

After making his Kings and National Hockey League debut on March 29 when he started the third period in a 7-2 loss to the Dallas Stars at Staples Center, Taylor was assigned back to the Manchester Monarchs of the American Hockey League, the Kings’ primary minor league affiliate, only to find himself recalled today (March 31) under emergency conditions.

Taylor is bouncing back and forth between the Kings, the Monarchs and even the Reading Royals of the ECHL (also a Kings’ affiliate). In fact, once he returned to the Monarchs, Taylor was immediately assigned to the Royals and he got 1:24 of ice time during the third period of the Royals’ 3-2 loss to Cincinatti on Sunday.

The reason? The Kings want Taylor to be eligible to play for the Royals in the ECHL playoffs, and after getting into Sunday’s game, he needs to get into one more, so he will likely be headed back to Reading in short order.

Taylor is the seventh goalie to play for the Kings this season, tying an NHL record. The 1989-90 Quebec Nordiques and 2002-03 St. Louis Blues also used seven goalies in one season.

Kings goaltender Dan Cloutier continues to suffer from a groin strain.

All stories and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original story on this site are required.