3/6 Preview – Lineup Thoughts + Buffalo Boy, Calming Veteran Defensemen & Afternoon Action

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (30-19-7) @ Buffalo Sabres (18-30-8)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Sunday, March 6 @ 10:00 AM Pacific
WHERE: KeyBank Center – Buffalo, NY
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings continue their four-game roadtrip this afternoon in Buffalo, as they visit the Sabres for a matinee in Western New York.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: LA was victorious in the first meeting of the season, a 3-2 win over Buffalo in October at Crypto.com Arena. Forward Anze Kopitar had a goal and an assist, while forward Adrian Kempe and defenseman Tobias Bjornfot each had two assists in the victory. Forward Alex Iafallo, a native of Western New York, has five points (1-4-5) from seven games played versus the Sabres, including the game-winning goal when the teams met earlier this season.

KINGS VITALS: Considering the 1 PM local puck drop here in New York, the Kings naturally did not skate in advance of today’s game.

Yesterday’s practice served as a best estimate of today’s alignment, though the Kings held an optional skate in Buffalo, though most of the team opted to skate.

Today’s goaltender is not yet known, though the Kings are expected to split the starts between today and tomorrow evening in Boston. Should the rotation turn back to Cal Petersen, he would faceoff against the team that drafted him for the second time in his NHL career, after the Iowan made 43 saves on 47 shots in an overtime defeat back in December 2018. Should Jonathan Quick get the nod for the second straight start, he brings with him an 8-3-0 record against Buffalo, along with a .929 save percentage and a 1.71 goals-against average, his lowest GAA against a single opponent.

The Kings held an optional skate yesterday in Buffalo, so we won’t know this afternoon’s lineup for sure until we get to warmups, however, here’s a projected Kings lineup to take on the Sabres –

Anderson-Dolan – Kopitar – Kempe
Moore – Danaut – Arvidsson
Iafallo – Byfield – Brown
Athanasiou – Lizotte – Kaliyev

Anderson – Doughty
Maatta – Roy
Bjornfot – Durzi

Quick / Petersen

As reported yesterday, forward Brendan Lemieux is day-to-day with a lower-body injury. Lemieux did not practice yesterday, with forward Andreas Athanasiou potentially checking in up front, as he took that spot during yesterday’s practice. Additional options include forward Carl Grundstrom and defenseman Jacob Moverare.

SABRES VITALS: Buffalo enters today’s action off of five-goal outputs versus both Toronto and Minnesota, both victories, and a two-game winning streak overall.

In net for Buffalo, the Sabres could opt to use either Craig Anderson or Dustin Tokarski, considering the fact that they also play tomorrow evening. Anderson brings a 5-8-4 record against the Kings into today’s game, with a .890 save percentage and a 3.36 goals-against average. Tokarski, who started the game earlier this season, is 0-1-1 with a .905 save percentage and a 2.90 goals-against average.

Per Lance Lysowski of the Buffalo News, here’s how the Sabres aligned yesterday during practice –

Tweeting out Sabres practice lines again because of a previous typo:

Skinner-Thompson-Tuch
Mittelstadt-Cozens-Okposo
Asplund-Krebs-Olofsson
Girgensons/Hinostroza-Jankowski-Hayden
Bjork an extra

Dahlin-Bryson
Samuelsson-Fitzgerald
Hagg-Pysyk
Butcher-Miller

— Lance Lysowski (@LLysowski) March 5, 2022

Buffalo is without several roster players, including Drake Caggiula, Zemgus Girgensons and Vinnie Hinostroza up front, as well as defensemen Will Butcher and Colin Miller. All five players are on injured reserve as of this writing.

Notes –

The Buffalo Boy
Not necessarily an insider observation here, but Alex Iafallo is from the Buffalo area,

Yupp, you can quote me on that one.

Many players on the Kings have homecoming stops around the NHL, with many coming during trips North of the border, but for Iafallo, it comes this weekend here in Buffalo. The Eden, NY native has come back before to play in front of friends and family and with COVID restrictions lightened, he’ll do so again tomorrow. A typically energetic home crowd will have some visiting flair to it for sure, with the hometown kid wearing white and black.

“It’s fun coming home, seeing the spots and being able to skate at the rink,” Iafallo said yesterday. “The atmosphere, with fans and friends in the stands during warmups, the little things add up.”

His first game here came during the 2017-18 season, and today’s meeting will be his fourth trip back to Buffalo as a Kings player. With three years left on his contract with the Kings after this one, those trips don’t feel likely to end anytime soon as a member of the traveling party from Los Angeles.

As noted above, Iafallo has five career points (1-4-5) from seven games played against the Sabres. He scored the game-winning goal when these two teams met back in late-October, a victory that brought the Kings a game closer to the .500 mark after a slow start to the season. Now, expectations have grown and the team is depending on players like Iafallo for production. He knows that, now as a veteran of five NHL seasons and four trips to Western New York.

“At first, the first couple of years it’s cool, well it’s always going to be cool, but it’ll be good to see them, and then now it’s a job, you’ve got to perform,” he added. “It’s awesome to see them in the stands, see them today, it’s pretty special.”

Iafallo estimated he’ll have “quite a few” friends and family tomorrow. Last time we were here, it was a party bus into the game. We’ll expect to see the traveling support at full volume later on today.

Calm Trees
Speaking with Trent Yawney over the last week or so, with Todd McLellan in COVID Protocol, has given us a sense of his thoughts on the defensemen, who Yawney works so closely with on a day-to-day basis. Yawney is responsible for the defensemen throughout the entire season, so even now as he’s responsible for the entire bench, his thoughts on the backend are especially interesting for those of us listening.

On several occasions, Yawney has highlighted Drew Doughty as a player who the younger defensemen on the blueline can learn from. Doughty is a Hall of Famer in the making, with plaque awaiting him at the end of his NHL career. With three players under 100 games played on the backend, what better individual to learn from and what better role model to have in the process.

“It goes right through Drew, and I know that, from the top of the circles down, he’s one of the best defenders in the league, at least Top 3,” Yawney said. “You’ve got to have the defending part down first, if you’re a young defenseman, that gives you ice time, trust with the coach, that gives you minutes. It’s not really a big secret, that’s where I’ve went on other teams that I’ve been on, and I know from experience, if you don’t have that, you better have a special talent and there’s only a handful of those guys that come around through decades.”

While Doughty is the clear number-one defenseman, it’s full-group effort on the backend for the Kings, with fellow veterans Olli Maatta and Matt Roy providing valuable minutes in high-pressure roles.

Over the last two games especially, things have ramped up at certain times throughout the game. There has been pressure to manage and Doughty can’t log every second in that situation. Yawney has trust and confidence in the pairing of Olli Maatta and Matt Roy as well, highlighting both players, along with Doughty, as individuals who can help to get things back on track when they might go a bit off the rails.

“It would be Drew, he has done it his whole career, and the pair that has helped out with that has been 6-3, they’ve been very, very steady over a long period of time and very good on the penalty kill,” Yawney said. “They know what their games are, they don’t try to do too much in those situations, whereas some guys try to hit a homerun, those guys look for a single and the momentum shifts back in your team’s favor.”

Handling those situations is key after a goal, and key to keeping momentum either with the Kings, or more towards a neutral setting. Good to have those players in those situations.

Afternoon Action
If I’ve read one narrative on Twitter this season, it’s been that the Kings struggle in afternoon games, especially those on the East Coast. It’s not quite as wrong a the “Kings lose against bad teams” narrative, but it’s not as absolute as it’s made out to be either.

It’s one that makes sense, and I can’t speak for past seasons, but the Kings bring a 3-2-1 record in afternoon games this season into today’s action. One of those three was the 3-2 win over Buffalo back in late-October and another was one of the team’s best wins of the season, 4-3 in Pittsburgh back in late-January. See how game number 7 shakes out today.

Kings and Sabres, a 10 AM puck drop back in California! Brew the coffee, grab a bagel and tune in for a Sunday-morning showdown!