Day 10 Practice Notes – Petersen/Byfield Updates + Durzi talks contract, Walker on the left

Good Afternoon, Insiders!

The Kings were back on the ice today in El Segundo as they prepare for their first preseason game in Los Angeles, coming tomorrow evening against the Anaheim Ducks.

First, a couple of updates from today.

Cal Petersen rejoined the group today for the first time since Monday. Petersen made his preseason debut on Monday evening against the Vegas Golden Knights, though he left the game after 20 minutes with a lower-body injury. Petersen was labeled day-to-day by Todd McLellan and we are in fact five days later seeing him on the ice. There’s no “non-contact jersey” for goaltenders as we see for skaters, though we can estimate Petersen will be eased back in a bit as he gets up to speed.

Quinton Byfield, on the other hand, missed practice for the second consecutive day with an illness, he’s day-to-day at this time. Rasmus Kupari seemed to take the bulk of rushes on that line yesterday, and did so again today, though with 14 forwards there was a lot of mixing and matching among the forwards.

Lastly, the Kings opted to swap the defensive pairings of Tobias Bjornfot / Brandt Clarke and Jacob Moverare / Jordan Spence. The former skated in Group A today, while the latter skated with Group B, a swap from yesterday’s alignment. Frankly, at this time, this is a non-story. It’s nothing out of the ordinary from what we’ve seen in past McLellan camps, this has literally happened in every camp McLellan has run with then Kings. Similar shuffling towards the roster bubble wouldn’t be surprising as we approach a final roster.

How it all shook out was the following alignment –

Group A
Kevin Fiala – Anze Kopitar – Adrian Kempe
Trevor Moore – Phillip Danault – Gabe Vilardi – Viktor Arvidsson (Red)
Alex Iafallo – Rasmus Kupari – Arthur Kaliyev
Brendan Lemieux – Blake Lizotte – Carl Grundstrom – Jaret Anderson-Dolan

Mikey Anderson – Drew Doughty
Sean Walker – Matt Roy
Alex Edler – Sean Durzi
Jacob Moverare – Jordan Spence

Jonathan Quick
Cal Petersen
David Hrenak

Group B
Lias Andersson – T.J. Tynan – Samuel Fagemo
Martin Chromiak – Aidan Dudas – Taylor Ward
Justin Nachbaur – Samuel Helenius – Jacob Doty
Alan Quine – Akil Thomas – Tyler Madden
Austin Wagner – Nate Thompson

Tobias Bjornfot – Brandt Clarke
Tobie Bisson – Helge Grans
Kim Nousiainen – Frederic Allard
Cameron Gaunce – Cameron Supryka

Matthew Villalta
Pheonix Copley

Dealin’ Durzi
Earlier today, I shared a story regarding Sean Durzi’s summer of rehabilitation, his process and where he stands entering training camp. SEE HERE for that story.

Durzi also, however, touched on the other interesting element of his summer and that was his first free agency as an NHL player. Negotiations lasted into September, but Durzi wound up signing a two-year extension with the Kings, carrying a cap hit of $1.7 million with plenty of time to spare before training camp got underway last week.

When speaking with Mikey Anderson earlier in the summer, he said that he preferred to essentially separate himself from contract negotiations, deferring to his agent until things got close. That’s a stark comparison to say Drew Doughty, who negotiated on his own behalf, securing a long-term contract when it was his time. Durzi certainly trended more towards Anderson’s end of things, noting that he doesn’t quite have the resume that Doughty does to walk in and negotiate his own deal.

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t have a Norris and two cups, I couldn’t just walk into Blakey’s office and negotiate myself,” he said with a laugh. “I have a great team around me for that too.”

Perhaps the biggest wrinkle in Durzi’s summer was that not only was he a restricted free agent, but he was also rehabbing from shoulder surgery.

He made it known to his representation that his priority was on his shoulder, and that for the most part he wanted to stay out of contract negotaitions.

“Going into the summer with the shoulder, I made it clear that I wanted to focus on this, focus on bettering myself,” he said. “I didn’t know how long it usually takes, you see guys signing around the league and you’re like, ‘when are we going to get it done’ but it’s a process. You see the business aspect of things for the first time in your career and I have a good enough team that they allowed me to focus on myself and focus on what I can control and let them handle things on that side.”

The end result of the process was a two-year contract, which keeps him as a restricted free agent at the end of his team. Many would call it a bridge contract.

For Durzi, the deal offers him security for two seasons, as well as the opportunity to bet on himself over those two seasons. If he explodes, he’s due for a larger contract next time out and he didn’t lock himself into a cap hit that only takes into account one season of production. It also represents a nice raise in the interim. For the Kings, the deal is a more than manageable cap hit in the interim, for a key player from last season, but a player who only has one proven NHL season. This took into account that season of production, but doesn’t tie the team for a long term around one season of production.

As he discussed the process, Durzi indicated there were several different things discussed, both in terms of term and cap hit, with the two-year deal eventually agreed to by both parties.

“There were tons of options, you can go down the list,” he said. “When you’re doing a contract negotiation, it’s not really one deal and you’re set on negotiating on that. It’s term, money, all that stuff and that was the first time I realized it was that much of a discussion. Like I said, I’m not Drew Doughty and I can’t just walk in there and go ask for whatever I want. It was a process, there were a lot of different options on the table and I’m really happy with what we got done.”

Walk This Way (If This Way Is Left)
We’ve seen defenseman Sean Walker play on the left side for the bulk of training camp thus far.

With a large group of up and coming players on the right side, led by the emergence of Durzi last season and closely followed by Jordan Spence and Brandt Clarke, the Kings found themselves with a great problem to have as Sean Walker and Drew Doughty returned from injury. The first solution, as Rob Blake has alluded to since early in the summer, was to move one of those players to the left side. That player has been Walker early in camp, who is the player with the most experience in that role.

“Those guys came in and did an amazing job and they earned their keep, so that’s good for us,” Walker said. “The left side is not something that’s completely new to me and Royzie and I actually came up together and played in Ontario together and I was on the leftt side there, so it’s not super foreign to me. It’s just about reps and getting comfortable with it all over again, just kind of like everything right now.”

It’s not as if the Kings are asking Walker to move from the right side of the blueline to left wing or anything like that.

It’s still playing defense, just on the other side of the ice, a role he has played in before. In the offensive zone, for example, it creates a new perspective when walking the blueline, as he’s moving towards his forehand as opposed to pulling the puck with him or skating with the puck on his backhand. Different things change in the other areas of the ice as well, but those are things he’s working on and continuing to improve on.

“There are certain aspects of it, the o-zone for one, where I feel more comfortable walking off the wall,” he said. “In the neutral zone, you’ve got to work with just some different aspects being a righty playing on the opposite side. There wil be some things that we figured out along the way, but I think it’s a really good opportunity for us to be really successful on the back end.”

We’ve seen Walker on the left in the past, both at the AHL and NHL levels. As Walker indicated, he played on the left during his rookie season back in the AHL, when he and Roy were both in their first professional campaigns. We also saw him there at times during the 2020-21 season with the Kings.

The move is typically based more from opportunity and necessity than anything else, in this care more of the former than the latter. Last season, the Kings had a fairly healthy balance between left shots and right, typically running with three of each. We did see, however, when players were injured, changes were necessitated, which put players on their off hand.

Speaking with assistant coach Trent Yawney, it’s a matter of comfort, when assessing who to put in that role, when called upon.

“Not everybody likes playing [their off side] and I’m all about comfort, I don’t want to put guys into situations to fail,” he said. “If they’re not comfortable playing their off side, I’m not going to play him on that off side. With Walks, this is my fourth year here and he’s shown the ability to play both sides and not be affected by it too much. Durz is another one who has emerged into that role. You’ve got to play with the hand that you’re dealt, and that’s kind of what we have in our organization.”

Both Yawney and Walker spoke about the fact that it’s the emergence of others on the right side that has made a move like this an option, and both agreed that’s a great thing for the organization to have.

With a few more options who shoot right on the blueline, it’s about finding the right fit first and foremost. As Yawney added, Walker is not the only defenseman to play on his off side and around the NHL, there are tons of players who even prefer it. As long as the player is comfortable, and it’s working, stay the course.

“We have a plethora of right-handed defenseman, which isn’t a bad thing,” Yawney added. “If someone is going to play on the left, it’s making sure you find the right guy and make sure he’s paired with the right guy, and it works the other way too. There are lots of guys that play on their off side and like I said, it’s more about comfort. For some guys, it just doesn’t feel right and you notice it right away, so I’ll usually just pull the plug on that real quick.”

Over the last 24 hours, we’ve now spoken with both Yawney and Jim Hiller, to give a bit of insight into the penalty kill and power play respectively as we hit a week and a half of training camp, in addition to players on both units and how they’re adapting early. More to follow on both fronts, likely beginning with an article on the PK unit and eventually moving into the power play, which was a focal point during today’s practice.

The Kings are back at it for preseason action tomorrow evening, as they host the Ducks in the first game of the 2022 exhibition season to be played at Crypto.com Arena. Puck drops at 6 PM.