11/10 Preview – Projected Lineup + Chicago Rematch, Importance Of Faceoffs, Turcotte to ONT

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (8-6-1) vs. Chicago Blackhawks (5-5-2)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR SEASON GAME
WHEN: Thursday, November 10 @ 7:30 PM Pacific
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: ESPN+ / Hulu – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings are back at it on home ice this evening against Chicago, with a rematch against the Blackhawks from last week in Illinois on the docket.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings dropped the first game of the season by a 2-1 final in overtime when these teams met at United Center last week. Forward Blake Lizotte scored his team’s lone goal in that game, while forward Arthur Kaliyev and defenseman Sean Walker tallied the assists. Forward Phillip Danault led the Kings with four goals and five points against his former team a season ago.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held a full practice yesterday in El Segundo, leading to an optional morning skate today in advance of the tilt with Chicago –

Coming off of a shutout victory on Tuesday, Jonathan Quick was not on the ice this morning, making him tonight’s expected starter this evening, his fourth consecutive start. Quick stopped 17-of-19 in the overtime defeat in Chicago last week. All-time versus the Blackhawks, Quick has posted a 15-16-3 record, with a .911 save percentage and a 2.57 goals-against average.

The Kings do not appear to be in line for any changes coming off of this morning’s skate, but as always, wait for the song. Based on alignments over the last two days, here’s how the Kings could line up this evening versus Chicago –

Kempe – Kopitar – Vilardi
Moore – Danault – Arvidsson
Fiala – Kupari – Grundstrom
Lemieux – Lizotte – Kaliyev
Anderson-Dolan

Anderson – Doughty
Durzi – Roy
Edler – Walker
Clarke

Quick
Petersen

Should the hosts opt to make any lineup changes, forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan and defenseman Brandt Clarke are options to check back into the lineup. Clarke hasn’t played since November 1 in Dallas, while Anderson-Dolan has been out since October 27 versus Winnipeg. Since the Kings opted for an 11/7 alignment against the Stars, we’ve seen the same lineup in each of the three games since.

BLACKHAWKS VITALS: Chicago has been off since Saturday, when they were defeated 4-0 by the Winnipeg Jets. Tonight’s game is a part of a short, two-game trip as the Blackhawks visit Los Angeles and Anaheim before heading home.

Chicago Head Coach Luke Richardson said that goaltender Petr Mrazek and Arvid Soderblom are expected to split the starts in California. Mrazek appears likely to get the nod this evening, his first start back from injury. Mrazek is 3-1-0 all-time versus the Kings, with a .968 save percentage, a 1.00 goals-against average and a shutout.

Per Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun Times, here is how Chicago lined up during their morning skate from Crypto.com Arena –

Blackhawks lines in morning skate vs. Kings:

Athanasiou-Domi-Kane
Kurashev-Toews-Raddysh
Entwistle-Dickinson-Lafferty
Katchouk-Blackwell-RJohnson

JJohnson-McCabe
Tinordi-Murphy
CJones-Regula

Mrazek/Soderblom

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) November 10, 2022

As they did in Chicago, former Kings Andreas Athanasiou and Jack Johnson are expected to be in tonight’s lineup against their former team, on the top forward line and top defensive pairing respectively. Athanasiou has six points (3-3-6) and a +3 rating from 12 games played with his new club.

Haven’t I Seen You Before
“We’re into the Chicago game, we’ll take that test tonight and I think that there can be improvements.”

Todd McLellan was asked before the game against Minnesota if he looked at that game as a “measuring stick” game of sorts, as it was the first time the Kings had seen an opponent twice this season. McLellan answered that it was not, in the sense of the the first Minnesota game being an absolute one-off, in that it was a strange, 7-6 game that really wasn’t worth a comparable. Two nights later, the same question can be asked, because the Kings were happy with some of the progress made in terms of process in Chicago last week, even though they were not opportunistic with their chances and lost 2-1 in overtime.

McLellan referenced that in Minnesota, the Kings were shorthanded six times in the final 40 minutes of the game, which is not how they want to play. In Chicago, the game was played predominantly at 5-on-5, which suits the Kings just fine.

“In Chicago, it was a little bit more at 5-on-5 when we were their building, there weren’t a significant amount of penalties either way and sometimes that favors us,” McLellan said. “We like to play 5-on-5 and after taking the test tonight, we’ll see if we can apply some of the things we practiced the last couple of days and see if we can improve in those areas after practicing them.”

In the Blackhawks, a different test awaits the Kings. McLellan noted that Chicago plays the game differently than Minnesota does and highlighted the importance of keeping a power-play in the top-third of the league off the ice. He also highlighted their cup-holdovers – Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews – on strong starts to the season.

From a scouting perspective, the good news is that these teams played just seven days prior and Chicago has only played once since then. Not much you can do in terms of a stylistic overhaul in that time, so the Kings have a good idea of what’s facing them.

“I don’t think there’s a team in the league that’s going to recreate their identity in one a week, it’s impossible,” McLellan added. “They have structure, they have a new coach, they’ve had a chance to work on it and they’re more likely polishing things up and reaffirming what they want to do. If we have a good pre-scout, we should have a pretty good idea of what some of the tactics are and we’ll present that to the team using as much information as we can from our game in Chicago, versus the game Winnipeg, but there are always little tidbits from the most recent game that that we can look at.”

A Faceoff of Faceoffs
Two of the top five faceoff teams in the NHL square off this evening in Los Angeles.

The Blackhawks currently lead the league in the circle in the early goings at 57 percent, while the Kings rank fifth at just over 54 percent. Fifth in the league is a familiar spot for the LA Kings, who ranked fifth in the league in the dot last season as well, over the course of 82 games.

“Both teams take pride, I know we do for sure with where we’re at in the circle,” center Blake Lizotte said this morning. “When you have a tough matchup, I think all four of their centermen are good and I think all four of ours are solid as well. I think it should be a good battle-level test for us more than anything. When it’s two good centermen taking a draw, sometimes it comes down to who wants it more and it’s not just the centers there, but the wingers too.”

A big part in the process has naturally been the team’s top two centermen – Anze Kopitar and Phil Danault – who are among the top five in the NHL in even-strength faceoff percentage. Kopitar is winning more than 61 percent of his faceoffs, ranking fifth among centers with at least 150 draws taken. Danault is North of 54 percent, a strong number from a notoriously strong faceoff winner.

Joining that crew has been Blake Lizotte, who has seen his own numbers improve each season he’s been in the league, coming in at over 52 percent this season. Rasmus Kupari, while under 50 percent on the season, is up around 4.5 percentage points from a season ago. Depth is important, and the growth especially of Lizotte has been noticed.

“It’s very important, especially on the penalty kill,” Todd McLellan said of Lizotte. “Lizzo has become a very trusting penalty killer and if he can start those in those situations, which always starts with a faceoff in your end, if he’s hot on a given night it takes some minutes away from other players. That’s often a good thing and it gets him on the ice more too.”

From Lizotte’s perspective, he hasn’t done a ton differently, but did attribute experience and familiarity around the league as two potential factors.

Even winning one extra draw every other game is enough to swing your numbers up a percentage point or two. When it comes to an area like faceoffs, the line is that fine sometimes and has led to the uptick for Lizotte.

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s too much on my end, just getting stronger and whether the league wants it or not, the older you get, you get a little more leniency and I think that contributes to the percentages,” he added. “One faceoff, every other game, that you might not get otherwise, that adds up at the end of the year, a full percentage point.”

An important part of the game to keep an eye on this evening.

Turc-ey Dinner
Finally, some great news this morning, Insiders, as forward Alex Turcotte has been activated from the injured/non-roster list, stemming from before training camp, and was subsequently loaned to the AHL’s Ontario Reign.

Turcotte has skated with the AHL club over the last couple of weeks, first in a non-contact capacity and then in a full-contact jersey over the last week or so. The expectation with Turcotte is that he will skate tonight in San Jose as the Reign visit the Barracuda, marking his first game since he suffered a concussion during the 2022 Calder Cup Playoffs on an illegal check to the head.

Turcotte has been activated & traveled to SJ with the Reign. His thoughts on returning:

"It's been a pretty tough year with the uncertainty of not knowing when I was going to play again or feel normal again, but now I feel the best I’ve probably ever felt. I'm 100%." https://t.co/xcUPDdF0Pu

— Jared Shafran (@ShafReign) November 10, 2022

We’ll have a full feature story here on LAKI tomorrow, as Jared Shafran chatted with Turcotte on his recovery process and getting back into game action, as well as his thoughts on his first game back to come later on this evening. A terrific sign of progress for Turcotte, who it’s easy to forget is just 21 years of age. Kempe……..Vilardi……..patience.

Kings and Blackhawks, tonight at 7:30 PM from downtown Los Angeles! See you there.