A few Saturday morning practice notes

Several notes from the Kings’ two practices at Toyota Sports Center on Saturday morning:

-The Kings split practices today into two groups, with the first group taking the ice at 9:45 a.m. and the second group following at roughly 11:15. Given that we’re expecting a 9:45 a.m. morning skate tomorrow, and that there were 20 players on the ice for the morning practice, the tea leaves would indicate that the early group will play tomorrow evening in Anaheim. Amongst the skaters that participated earlier today were the Pearson-Carter-Toffoli line and the King-Richards-Williams line. Should this group indeed play, it would be a touch more experienced of a Kings team than the one that beat the Ducks 4-3 in a shootout on Thursday.

-Drew Doughty, Jarret Stoll and Jonathan Quick are skating with a smaller second group. Marian Gaborik didn’t take the ice with either group today, but I’m told his absence is due to a standard “maintenance thing” and that there’s nothing serious there.

-I spoke with Dwight King and Andy Andreoff after the first session and should hear from Jeff Carter and Darryl Sutter soon. The King conversation was very interesting – he discussed his efforts to refine his own possession game and boards play, and it developed into a conversation over the overall merit of possession stats and analytics. It’s always interesting to hear a player’s position on the subject du jour, and considering he’s been skating opposite Possession Deity Justin Williams, he has a unique perspective on the matter. That story should be up in the next 90 minutes.

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