November 7 practice notes; Zatkoff healthy

A good morning to you, Insiders, and thank you for your patience as a few rough edges from the redesign are sanded off over the coming days. I took a personal afternoon yesterday and wasn’t in front of a computer after 11 a.m., so today will be the day I’m planning to be in regular contact with our developers and tech team and will relay all of the jagged edges that might be showing up on your devices. As always, if something’s not loading or formatting correctly, please let me know, either by replying to a post of mine in commenting (it makes it easier to locate all issues that way), or by sending me an email at jonnyrosen-at-gmail.

There was a practice today! It began at 8:30 a.m. Occasionally, on a long travel day, the team will practice before a cross-continent flight. “Yeah, I haven’t been up in the 6’s in a long time,” Drew Doughty said. “It’s not that bad, it’s better then having to fly out to Toronto yesterday or something like that. It was good to have a day off.”

The Kings were grouped by color-coordinated jerseys at practice:

White: Pearson-Kopitar-Purcell-Nolan
Blue: King-Carter-Toffoli
Yellow: Brown-Dowd-Setoguchi
Red: Clifford-Shore-Lewis

-There were no changes to forward lines, though Jordan Nolan did cycle through with Anze Kopitar’s group. It was an up-tempo practice that opened well before 8:30 with some finishing drills around the net, followed by your typical flow and puck retrieval drills and what have you. Before stretching and hustling back to the room to catch the flight, the team also took part in some in-zone, down-low compete drills.

-The two goalies were Peter Budaj and Jeff Zatkoff; expect a notification that Jack Campbell has been reassigned to AHL-Ontario to come in the next 36 hours. Zatkoff (groin) is fully healthy. “I felt really good,” he said. “…First full day, no pain, nothing. I feel like I’m 100% ready to go, so real positive. I think a little day off yesterday and kind of the rest I’ve had [was beneficial] – that little extra rest from Saturday really made a difference.” Zatkoff moved back into his stall in the team’s Toyota Sports Center dressing room.

-A fun write-up (though from the perspective of a Maple Leafs fan) on the Aki Berg trade tree. As Steve Dangle Glynn notes, the second round pick acquired as part of the trade that sent Berg to Toronto was used on Michael Cammalleri.

-After some Darryl Sutter quotes, I’ll have some stories up on the third line looking to sustain its impact on the road and a catching up piece with Steve Duchesne, who discussed both of his stints in Los Angeles. The discussion with Duchesne, prior to turning the recording devices on: could you imagine how friggin’ good Duchesne would’ve been in this “new,” slightly faster NHL? Come to think of it, he wasn’t half-bad in the “old” Smythe Division.

-Lots more coming soon. Enjoy your Monday, Insiders. Photos courtesy of Jon Bradley.