With a spot on the opening night roster, Brandt Clarke is ready to seize his “surreal” opportunity

As the LA Kings hit the ice for practice this morning, donning their chrome helmets in advance of tomorrow’s season opener, one, slightly legible number stood out amongst the rest.

92.

The Kings have had just one player in organizational history wear number 92 in a game – Rick Tocchet, back in 1994. While he has not yet played in a regular-season game, defenseman Brandt Clarke is aiming to be the second. The 19-year-old defenseman has made the team out of camp and changed his number from 54 to 92 in the process. He noted that not many defensemen around the league wear a number in the 90’s……but maybe it’ll start to catch on, though that’s not the real reasoning behind it.

“I went with 92, 55 is my original number but obviously Q has that,” Clarke explained. “My brother wears 92, so it’s cool that if we can both make the NHL, we’ll wear it together, and my birthday is also February 9, ninth day of the second month, so that works out well too. I also think it looks pretty sharp.”

The number on the back of Clarke’s helmet this morning is really irrelevant, really, even if it is a nice introduction to the story.

The story here is the seventh youngest defenseman in franchise history to make an opening-night roster. Clarke slots behind Tobias Bjornfot and Drew Doughty on that list, the two of the three blueliners who cracked the roster as an 18-year-old. A moment for Clarke that will last a lifetime, living the dream of making the NHL roster.

“It’s surreal, it’s something I’ve been working for my entire life really, it’s been a goal of mine,” Clarke said. “I’ve really ramped it up since knowing this was real possibility. They’ve given a real opportunity to showcase myself and I think I took advantage of that, I’m just stoked to be here. This is a dream of mine. I love the players here, I love the staff here and I’m thrilled to be on this team.”

Clarke’s play during training camp is what earned him a spot on the roster to open the season, one of seven defensemen to break camp with the NHL club.

The young defenseman played in six of seven preseason games, featuring in a variety of different roles with different partners. Clarke played on the power play. He played on both sides of the ice. He’s made plays that make you go wow and he’s made plays that you might expect an 18-year-old playing against NHL players to make.

Through it all though, he’s been himself, playing with his own style of hockey, with his own personality. So far, so good.

“Brandt knows who Brandt is, he knows what’s in his toolbox, in his toolkit,” Head Coach McLellan said. “He hasn’t played with fear and what I mean by fear is not the physical part of it, it’s the fear of erring on the ice, he makes plays, the intense plays. He’s been very coachable throughout training camp. Potentially away from the Kings, I could see where that confidence or that swagger could be misread in other environments, where it could hurt him, but with us, not one bit.”

The Kings have two assistant coaches with a wealth of experience when it comes to introducing younger defensemen into the NHL in Trent Yawney and Jim Hiller, both of whom have worked with players in those age ranges in their time in the league. Now it’s Clarke’s turn.

The rules state that Clarke can play up to nine games before the Kings truly need to make a decision on his full season schedule. Look at it from this point of view – Between now and November 14, the Kings play 18 games, meaning if Clarke went every other night between now and then, he’d play nine games by that point.

His OHL team in Barrie only plays 11 games during that stretch as well, so for the “Clarke needs to play to develop” crowd, he’s really not losing out on any game action by playing in half of the NHL games in that time versus a full, OHL slate.

“It comes down to making sure that when he does get the lineup, he’s going to get the right amount of minutes to keep developing,” General Manager Rob Blake said. “His play through rookie camp and training camp has put him to a level where we want to see him in the NHL and that kind of went into the decision process. Now, the step is to make sure that it keeps going that way and we’ll let that play out here for the first little while and probably have to reevaluate [later on].”

When it comes to his play, most of the eyeballs go to what he does with the puck and his play at the offensive end of the ice, first and foremost.

Blake has seen more than that though and it requires more than that to play in the NHL. Clarke’s ability with the puck, including his deception and hockey intelligence in the offensive zone, are things that Blake has liked seeing, but he’s also been impressed with Clarke’s ability to hold his own defensively and to play in all situations. On a team that prides itself in defensive structure and being difficult to play against, those things are important. Clarke has shone through in many ways in his General Manager’s eyes.

“I think he can play in all situations, including penalty kill, which can give you an opportunity to get the minutes needed to keep developing at the NHL level. Power play, obviously, you see the deception and his hockey IQ, but also defending, he’s good in a sense with his defending. He’ll have to learn to protect himself a little bit more, there are guys who are bigger and stronger at this level than in juniors. I think his all-around game, there are a lot of aspects that would allow a player when he does get in the lineup in the regular season to maintain those minutes that are going to help him progress.”

Helpful for the Kings in the process of potentially easing Clarke into game action is the fact that five of the seven defensemen on the roster for Opening Night shoot right. With Sean Walker returning to the group that also includes Drew Doughty, Matt Roy and Sean Durzi, the Kings have a wealth of depth and experience on the right side of the blueline, depth that means not only can the Kings be selective with Clarke’s integration, but that a defenseman will have to play on the left side on a night-to-night basis.

Blake addressed the decisions that have to be made and how they could pertain to Clarke’s status early in the season.

“We’ve tried quite a few [players] over there, Sean Walker’s played there at times, I think we’ve got to get him comfortable coming back from the surgery before we experiment again with the left side,” Blake added. “We saw Sean Durzi slide over there and make that transition really easy and we’ve used Clarke over there a couple of times. The availability to open up that left side within our defense can increase [the chances of] getting Brandt in the lineup and getting him the minutes he needs.”

As Clarke takes the next step in the process, from preseason games to regular-season games, he knows that the journey will only get more and more difficult.

He’s seen firsthand the differences in jumping from the OHL to the Rookie Faceoff and then the Rookie Faceoff to NHL training camp. Along the way, Clarke has gotten a first-hand education on how players at all levels prepare, and the commitment required on a day-to-day basis. He highlighted Alex Edler and Drew Doughty as players who have helped him here with the Kings and it’s the professionalism and attitude that the NHL requires that has rubbed off on him the most.

“You see the professional attitude around here, it’s really telling and if you want to stick here, you have to bring the same attitude every day in practices, games, workouts,” Clarke said. “It’s really been an eye opener how seriously everyone takes it, how determined everyone is here. I’ve tried to match that, I’ve had to bring my ‘A’ performance every single day because if not I’m going to fall behind and I wouldn’t be on this team right now. That’s something I’m pretty proud of with the consistency that I brought and I’m going to try to continue it.”

Whether that leads to a spot among the six defensemen expected to dress tomorrow evening against Vegas remains to be seen. Clarke has certainly impressed in his six exhibition contests, but the Kings also have six defensemen with NHL experience on the team alongside him.

His time will come though, with the expectation that he’ll check into an early-season game to make his NHL debut soon enough. When that time comes, he’ll be ready and appreciative for the opportunity.

“We’ll see what happens. Whether I’m in the press box or in the lineup, either way it’ll be pretty soon. I’m just really appreciative to be here and thrilled to be on this team.”