As I'm trying to get ready to head to Las Vegas, I went online to check my email, and was greeted with this news from TSN.

Now, this changes the whole dynamic of the Kings. Bernier, who has shown that he's ready to make the leap to the NHL, is the odds-on favorite to start. To me, this shows that Kings management is indeed feeling more pressure to win now.

At first, I felt that if the Kings move ahead and call up Bernier, that his growth would be stunted. But, after seeing his play over the summer and in training camp, I'm beginning to think that maybe things are going the Kings way now. We now have young talent up and down this roster. Kopitar, Cammalleri, Johnson, O'Sullivan, Brown, now Bernier...

And if there was ever a time to bring up a young goaltender, thank God they improved their blue line in the off-season. Having Blake, Visnovsky, Stuart, Johnson, Priessing, Modry (well...) patroling the blue line is a lot more comforting than the crew they rolled out last season. At least, there's more of an emphasis of defensive-minded forwards and stay-at-home D-Men.

So, the Cloutier experiment is seemingly over. The future is now for Los Angeles.

I'll be updating once I get to Vegas.

Four hours of sleep, four hours of road ahead of me... thank God for coffee.