Practice 11/26 – New Lines & Rationale, Practice Focus and Andersson plus an update on #DoughtyWatch

Happy Friday, Insiders!

The Kings were back on the ice this morning, fresh out of the Thanksgiving holiday, with the Ottawa Senators waiting in the wings tomorrow afternoon at STAPLES Center.

The big news of the day was today’s alignment – in a number of ways. The Kings went for a massive shuffle of lines during the third period of Wednesday’s loss against Toronto, with Todd McLellan downplaying those specific changes as in-game adjustments that would be reviewed. Today’s combinations were different, with more of a controlled shift, though each of the team’s top three lines have a change in personnel.

McLellan also shifted the defensive pairings a bit, moving Olli Maatta with Matt Roy and Alex Edler with Sean Durzi. The team’s full alignment from today is below –

Kempe – Kopitar – Brown
Iafallo – Danault – Arvidsson
Moore – Andersson – Grundstrom
Lemieux – Lizotte – Kaliyev
Kupari

Bjornfot – Anderson
Maatta – Roy
Edler – Durzi
Clague – Doughty

Petersen
Quick

Now, these combinations represent a lot of things. The obvious one here is a deviation from how the Kings have aligned their forwards over the last slate of games. Naturally, Andreas Athanasiou’s presence in COVID-19 Protocol necessitated changes, and in the Top 6 at that. Following a four-goal defeat on Wednesday and the team’s struggles to produce 5-on-5 offense, changes are not necessarily surprising.

The Kings opted to move Dustin Brown back with Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe, while slotting in Viktor Arvidsson with Phillip Danault and Alex Iafallo. Blake Lizotte’s line, with Brendan Lemieux and Arthur Kaliyev, remained untouched today, with Lias Andersson centering Trevor Moore and Carl Grundstrom on a new-look line in the bottom six.

Those changes signal that Ramsus Kupari would be on the outside looking in, as was appearing to be the case for Wednesday, had Athanasiou’s situation not surfaced. More on those changes below.

The other note is how Drew Doughty was aligned, which was with defenseman Kale Clague today. When speaking about Doughty the other day, Todd McLellan noted that Doughty would be “heavily involved” in practice today, and he added today that Doughty is “not scheduled” to play tomorrow.

Originally, Doughty was stated to miss six-to-eight weeks with his injury, with the expectation that he would re-join the group at six weeks and potentially return to the lineup at eight weeks. Today marks 35 days after his original injury, aka right around five weeks.

Today’s Doughty update from Todd McLellan – “The very first thing is medical, that trumps everything. The doctors have to feel comfortable, the training staff has to feel comfortable that Drew can play at his best, in the most physical game there is, and come out clean. After that, it’s getting back on the ice, normally that’s done in a non-contact jersey to get timing and space awareness. When you haven’t played in a long time and you have a lower-body injury, you start thinking about groins and hip flexors, and you don’t want to set him further back because it creates another injury. As he works his way through that, he works his way into full practice, which is what we saw today. Over the next few days, he should be ready to play.”

McLellan added that Doughty is at a place where the coaching staff is seeing him make the plays in practice that they’re accustomed to seeing him make, and that’s usually when you know a player is close to being ready to go. There’s no hesitation or tentativeness right now, which is a good sign. We’ll continue with #DoughtyWatch on Sunday.

EL SEGUNDO, CA – SEPTEMBER 23: Drew Doughty #8 skates during practice at Toyota Sports Center on September 23, 2021 in El Segundo, California. (Photo by Will Navarro/NHLI via Getty Images)

Making Moves
As noted above, the Kings shuffled some things around at the forward position from how they lined up last game.

One such move was putting Viktor Arvidsson alongside Phillip Danault and Alex Iafallo, which is an interesting combination. Arvidsson adds a new element to that unit, bringing some speed and a shoot-first mentality to that line. Speaking with number 33 this morning, he felt that, at least at first time of asking, there could be something to the three of them skating together.

“Yeah, for sure, we’re good skaters, all three of us, and creative,” Arvidsson said. “Off the rush, I think we can be dangerous, and down low, in the zone, I think we’re good puck protectors and we move around down there. I think it could be a good fit.”

Todd McLellan felt that the other night against Toronto, his top two centermen weren’t skating as well as they normally do. That was the rationale behind the line changes made during the third period, which saw things vastly shuffled up.

Today’s changes were less prominent and fell in line with how the Kings have typically adjusted their lines. McLellan referenced the thought of “pairs” and changing the third member of a line as opposed to completely mashing things up.

“There have been things that have worked pretty well for us over 16, 17 games, but at times it gets stale,” McLellan said this morning. “We’re looking at sprucing individuals up sometimes. I always look at pairs, who’s been playing well together and then augment it with something maybe they’re missing.”

The biggest changes came within the top six. McLellan noted that the fourth line has given the team some sort of a spark in every game so far this season, which merits keeping that line together. The third line has been the unit where changes have consistently been made, with today’s alterations moving Lias Andersson back to center. Swapping Brown and Arvidsson though was big news, with Arvidsson partnering Danault for the first time in the regular season.

On paper, there could be a match there. Danault and Iafallo play well down low and Arvidsson finds open space as frequently as any other player on the Kings. Arvidsson is also a threat off the rush and brings speed and skill to that line.

“I think Arvy can give them some pace,” McLellan said. “Those two make really good short plays, I think. They hunt pucks down, they make 10-foot passes into dangerous scoring areas, slot plays and Arvy can find that ice. He’s quick enough, he’s willing to shoot it, so maybe they can develop that, as well as the rush.”

Practice Focus
The Kings have spent a ton of time focusing on the offensive side of the game over their last slew of practices.

Such is life when you’re creating chances but not converting those chances into goals at the rate you’d like to. McLellan discussed today that, in recent skates, the team’s focus has been on the offensive side of outnumbered chances, seeing defensemen join the rush to help create offense, the power play rather than the penalty kill. Etc, etc, etc.

With how the Kings have been losing games, prior to Toronto, that made sense. The defeat against the Maple Leafs, however, changed things up a bit from that perspective. With six goals against, McLellan said that today, the focus shifted back to the other side, with defense first being the priority.

“A lot of times, we’ve neglected the defensive side, so we went back to that to try and clean up some areas of that game,” McLellan said. “We put our workboots back on today, it was a good, hard, grinding day and we needed it.”

Speaking with Arvidsson, he mentioned pushing the pace and getting the speed up today, following yesterday’s off day. He referenced the game against Toronto and the need to clean up details from the team’s game. Those details, per McLellan, were on the defensive side, for the most part, with a need for certain areas to be cleaner tomorrow against Ottawa.

“Just getting the pace up, work hard and do those kinds of things,” he noted. “We had a day off yesterday, so we needed to push the pace yesterday. We have the game tomorrow at four, so we need to be ready for that one.”

Without a morning skate tomorrow, that focus was extra important today. The Kings play tomorrow at 4 PM, meaning today’s skate was the only one the team will have between Wednesday’s defeat and Saturday’s game.

Lastly, hear from forward Lias Andersson today, including evaluating strong individual metrics on a night when the team loses, his mindset when working his way back into the lineup and his versatility in playing a variety of different positions and roles.

In case you missed it, that’ll be all for today Insiders. The Ontario Reign were supposed to play tonight against Bakersfield, but that game, as well as tomorrow’s against San Jose, have been canceled due to ice issues at Toyota Arena. We’ll pick it back up tomorrow with a look at the matchup versus the Senators.