11/25 Preview – Full Skate Today + Kings on Special Teams, Durzi on Return, McLellan on Holiday

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (11-9-2) @ San Jose Sharks (7-12-3)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR SEASON GAME
WHEN: Friday, November 25 @ 7:30 PM Pacific
WHERE: SAP Center – San Jose, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings are back in action after a couple of days of practice, with a quick trip to San Jose to take on the Sharks.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Trevor Moore had four points (1-3-4) against San Jose last season to lead all skaters, with his goal being one of his league-leading five shorthanded goals on the season. Forwards Phillip Danault and Anze Kopitar each had two goals against the Sharks a season ago and Kopitar leads all active skaters with 66 points (25-41-66) in his career against San Jose.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held a full-team skate from San Jose this morning, following the team’s evening flight in from Los Angeles.

Goaltender Jonathan Quick was the first goaltender off this morning for the Kings, a notion that he’ll likely be tonight’s starter in San Jose. Quick has faced San Jose 43 times throughout his NHL career, tied for the third most amongst all opponents. Quick’s record all-time is 18-15-8 against the Sharks, with a .903 save percentage and a 2.68 goals-against average.

Below is a potential projection of how the Kings could align tonight, based off of this morning’s skate and practice over the last two days –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Durzi – Roy
Edler – Walker
Moverare

Quick
Petersen

From this morning, defenseman Jacob Moverare and forward Lias Andersson were on late after today’s skate. Moverare has skated in the last two games, while Sean Durzi was out with a lower-body injury, and held his own with a steady, reliable game. Andersson has yet to play in a game since he was recalled from AHL-Ontario.

SHARKS VITALS: San Jose is currently in a similar stretch of games, with five at home sandwiched around one on the road in Seattle. The Sharks lost 8-5 last time out against Seattle and have scored five goals in two straight games, with that game following a 5-1 win over Ottawa.

Goaltender James Reimer was off first this morning for the Sharks, making him tonight’s expected starting goaltender. All-time versus the Kings, Reimer has posted a 5-3-1 record, with a .941 save percentage and a 2.00 goals-against average.

Per Custis Pashelka of the Bay Area News Group, here’s how the Sharks lined up last time out, with info below on a pair of potential changes –

Sharks lines, d-pairs for tonight, per the team. pic.twitter.com/IQoWGhZWGB

— Curtis Pashelka (@CurtisPashelka) November 24, 2022

From the group above, expect to see Sadim Simek check back into the lineup in place of Nick Cicek, while forward Evgeny Svechnikov is expected to play in place of forward Jonah Gadjovich, who is under the weather. San Jose defenseman Erik Karlsson leads all defensemen in scoring this season and ranks tied for fourth amongst all skaters with 30 points (11-19-30) from 22 games played. Forwards Tomas Hertl (8-7-15) and Timo Meier (9-3-12) are a point-per-game or better against the Kings from the 12 games played over the last two seasons.

Notes –
Special Teams Shakeout
While San Jose sits five games below .500, you certainly wouldn’t know it by their special teams.

The Sharks enter tonight’s action as the NHL’s best team on the penalty kill, having allowed just five power-play goals against from 58 opportunities, good for an incredible 91.4 percent success rate. While far from the NHL’s best team on the man advantage, San Jose sits right on the halfway line of the league as far as power play goes at just over 21 percent. When you add it all up, Just two teams – Boston and Dallas – outrank San Jose when it comes to combined special teams (PP + PK).

“We’re aware of it and we have been for years, we haven’t had a lot of success against San Jose with their penalty kill and a lot of teams in the league are in that situation,” Todd McLellan said this morning. “I think this started when Pete de Boer was here, they had a system that they installed and it’s worked well for them. Even as the coaching changes have happened, they’ve maintained it, it’s a sign of a really strong belief in a system and instruction. The players that they’re using on it are accustomed to it, it’s not like they’re learning anything new. It’s a big part of the game when you play against the Sharks.”

That begs the question of the balance in approach between preparing for what to expect against San Jose and how to get your own systems and special teams in order. The Kings took a step forward on the power play against the Rangers, as Gabe Vilardi scored on the teams only opportunity, which came in the first period. That marked just the second time that unit has scored this month though, as the team reconfigured its makeup a bit a few games back.

Speaking with two members of the other unit, both were aware of San Jose’s prowess, but are also focused on what the Kings are looking to do in those situations.

Trevor Moore – We’ve looked a lot of what they do here. I don’t know if they’re top in the league, but they’re at 92 percent or something like that, they’re really good. They have a strong stand at the blue line and they come with a lot of pressure, so it’s a big challenge for us, but I think we’re ready for it.

Sean Durzi – One of the best penalty kills in the league now, so it’s something you look at, you know it and you’re aware of it. We’ve got to bring it, special teams are a big part of wins. Focusing on what we do well and being on the same page is something that we continue to work on but when you’re going game by game, you’ve got to look at the other team and what they do well. If they’re at the top, they’re obviously doing something right.

A point to watch, for a Kings team that wants to play the game at 5-on-5, but understands the need to improvements on special teams with getting a win tonight.

Durzi’s Focus Upon Return
Speaking of Durzi, the defenseman appears likely to make his return to the lineup this evening against the Sharks, as he was off from morning skate along with the other regulars and practiced in his usual spot on the power play.

Durzi suffered a lower-body injury late on the Western Canada trip, an injury that cost him games versus Seattle and New York as he recovered. The blueliner skated in more of an individual capacity on Tuesday, along with the also recovering Alex Iafallo, before he re-joined the full group for practices on Wednesday and Thursday.

Speaking with him this morning, Durzi feels ready to roll tonight in San Jose, with his focus on settling into the system, as well as what he feels the Kings do well.

“Just what our team does well, our systems and kind of flowing back to that part,” he said of his focal points in his potential return. “If I can be in my position, I’ve been kind of working my way out from there. So positionally sound, move pucks quick and kind of keep it simple at the start.

It was only two games out for the 24-year-old defenseman, but it still presented a perspective he’s never really had at the NHL level. Durzi has been out of the lineup just once since he made his NHL debut, naturally never watching consecutive games from the press box.

It’s naturally not a perspective he’s looking to get used to, but it offered a different angle and a different vantage point to learn from.

“Yeah, it was a different sort of view,” he said. “I went up top there and you can see the overhead of how things are playing out. Our neutral zone, d-zone. powerplay, things like that with a different view. Obviously you want to be on the ice but you try to find positives for missing a few and work to learn, work to get better and pick up a few things that our team does and opposite teams, you can learn from guys all over. I was just learning, watching and studying the game from a different angle.”

Expect to see Durzi back on his usual pairing alongside Matt Roy. The pairing has been relatively solid defensively, but larger-scale games have been an issue. Over their last 10 games together, eight of those games have seen the duo allow zero goals at 5-on-5. The other two, however, have seen three goals against. Those two games were Florida and Calgary, six of the 11 goals the Kings allowed in those two games. If we use our elementary school math, the mode and median of this assignment, fair better than the media. And that’s enough math for today.

Housekeeping
Lastly, Insiders, the Kings will wear their black jerseys tonight in San Jose, the first time they’ve gone with their blacks on the road this season. San Jose will be wearing their Reverse Retro attire this evening, a white sweater in homage of the California Seals.

The Kings traveled a bit differently than usual this trip to accommodate players and their families for the Thanksgiving holiday. Typically, the team would practice in El Segundo, usually at 10 AM, and fly immediately after to their destination. The Kings amended their schedule for this trip. They still skated in the morning, though it was quick, and they opted to fly at 6:30 PM instead, giving players and staff the day to spend with their families on the holiday.

A human element to an early-season schedule which has pushed that notion.

Todd McLellan on adjusting the schedule for Thanksgiving
I think it reminds us that they’re human beings that play the game and they make mistakes. Those times of year of the year, I’m thinking of Thanksgiving and Christmas especially, you kind of have a chance to sit back and realize that as coaches, you’re riding a horse and you’re probably whipping it all the time and sometimes you’ve got to let it breathe a little bit too. They’re human beings, they make mistakes, they don’t always feel good, they’re not perfect, but we do appreciate what they do and the effort that they give the organization and the fans. I guess you could say we’re thankful for that, but how does it affect the schedule? We consider it. Our big planning is done in June, July, as soon as the schedule comes out, we’ll spend a good week – Rob Koch and I – sitting down and laying out what the schedule will look like and we talk about the breaks, we talk about the holidays and how we’re going to manage it……we had 6:30 flight, we would normally leave at two o’clock in the afternoon that adjustment gets made so that they can spend time with their families.

Kings and Sharks, tonight at 7:30 PM from the tank. A good day to prevent a skid. Talk soon!