Thursday morning practice notes

Good morning from Toyota Sports Center, where there are a lot of Kings vets on the ice after a recovery day on Wednesday.

Line rushes and pairings mean little during the preseason – they’ll change a number of times before October 7 – but alignments are always a good conversation topic, and there have been changes made since the last veteran-heavy on-ice practice session.

Grey: Lucic – Kopitar – Gaborik
White: Pearson – Carter – Toffoli
Yellow: Mersch – Weal – Brown
Red: King – Shore – Nolan – O’Neill
Purple: Clifford – Andreoff – Lewis

-Don’t pay too much attention to these defensive pairings, because Matt Greene is ill (via hockey ops): Schultz-Ehrhoff, Muzzin-Martinez, McNabb-McBain, Forbort-Doughty.

-The two goaltenders on the ice are Jonathan Quick and Jhonas Enroth.

-Hockey scribes are tough. As noted in the tweet, thank you to Mark Whicker for being a good sport about being plunked in the head:

For some context, when reporters stand outside the corner of the ice nearest the Kings dressing room, there is always the possibility that they’ll be struck by deflected pucks that hit the netting above and to the left of the goal and fall straight down. According to TSC reporting lore, there was a particularly bad incident from several years ago when Heidi Androl was struck by an errant puck in the head in nearly the same spot. After many near-misses, today’s strike was an ugly one that caught Whicker atop the head – and then landed directly in his cup of coffee.

-This should be a lengthy practice; more to come following the team’s media availability.

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