12/11 Preview – No Morning Skate + A Good PK Effort, Tonight’s Mentality, On The Farm

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (15-11-4) @ Columbus Blue Jackets (9-15-2)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR SEASON GAME
WHEN: Sunday, December 11 @ 3:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Nationwide Arena – Columbus, OH
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings are back stateside for the second half of their Eastern Conference swing, capping off a back-to-back this evening in Columbus.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Viktor Arvidsson led the Kings a season ago with three goals and four points against the Blue Jackets, including a hat trick in a 4-3 overtime victory here in Columbus. Drew Doughty has 0.82 points-per-game against Columbus in his career, his highest rate against any opponent. Forward Alex Iafallo has seven points (4-3-7) and a +9 rating from eight games against the Blue Jackets.

KINGS VITALS: Considering the travel from Montreal last night, and the back-to-back set, the Kings did not hold a morning skate today in advance of their game against Columbus.

As such, we’ll assume that goaltender Jonathan Quick gets the nod this evening against the Blue Jackets, following Pheonix Copley’s win yesterday in Montreal. All-time versus Columbus, Quick has posted an 18-8-0 record, a .912 save percentage and a 2.22 goals-against average.

For reference, here is how the Kings aligned last night against the Canadiens –

Tonight's @LAKings Line Rushes –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Durzi – Roy
Edler – Walker

Copley
Quick

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) December 10, 2022

With no morning skate here in Columbus, we’ll have to see how things shake out here as it pertains to tonight’s lineup. Should the Kings opt to make a change from a personnel standpoint, defenseman Tobias Bjornfot and forward Samuel Fagemo are here with the team and are options to check in. Until warmups we wait.

BLUE JACKETS VITALS: Columbus concludes a three-game homestand tonight against the Kings, following a loss against Buffalo and a win over Calgary.

Goaltender Elvis Merzlikins is tonight’s expected starter for the Blue Jackets. Merzlikins has faced the Kings three times throughout his NHL career, posting a 1-1-1 record, with a .932 save percentage and a 2.63 goals-against average. Merzlikins is expected to be backed up by goaltender Jet Greaves, after goaltender Joonas Korpisalo was placed on injured reserve following the win over the Flames.

Per Bailey Johnson of the Columbus Dispatch, here’s how the Blue Jackets lined up last time out, with the team not expected to make any lineup changes this evening –

#CBJ lines at morning skate:
Gaudreau-Jenner-Nyquist
Laine-Roslovic-Chinakhov
Marchenko-Sillinger-Johnson
Robinson-Foudy/Meyer-Olivier

Gavrikov-Bjork
Berni-Gudbranson
Christiansen-Peeke

Sean Kuraly is not skating

— Bailey Johnson (@BaileyAJohnson_) December 9, 2022

Columbus has posted a 4-2-1 record against the Western Conference this season in games played in North America, and a 2-0-1 record against Pacific Division opposition. Offseason acquisition Johnny Gaudreau has 31 career points (10-21-31) from 28 games against the Kings. The Blue Jackets currently have more than $24 million in cap hits on injured reserve, the third-highest total in the NHL per CapFriendly.

Notes –
I Just Can’t Look, It’s Killing Me
In yesterday’s game preview, there was a section detailing the LA Kings penalty kill, its struggles as of late and certain areas that the players and coaches believed there could be change.

Last night against the Canadiens, the Kings killed all three of Montreal’s power-play opportunities. While they surrendered chances, as most teams do on the penalty kill, they got timely clears at the right times to force Montreal to go the length of the ice. Most of the kills saw the Kings get the puck all the way down the ice 2-3 times per kill and combined with some successful stands on zone entries, the PK as a whole had a really strong night. And it was needed.

Alex Edler – Yeah, for sure. I mean, they, they had some great shooters there on their powerplay and you know, we got some blocks, some saves and some clears. It was good.

Phillip Danault – Yeah, that’s huge. We need to get our confidence going on the PK and that’s got to come from us as a unit, the goalie, the D, the forwards, everyone. Little details. We have to be way better on the PK, we have all the tools, we’ve just got to fix it.

Statistically speaking, Montreal is one of the NHL’s worst on the power play, sitting at 15.7 percent, the third lowest total across the NHL. In their case, they’ve clicked at eight points higher with three goals from their last four games entering the matchup with the Kings and McLellan believes they are more dangerous than the numbers suggest.

“It was good, they’re a very dangerous powerplay, the number that they present to stats people can be really deceiving. You saw that in the pre-scout, they created a number of chances. To alleviate the pressure and get it down the ice and get fresh guys out, it helped us.”

Tonight’s opponent in Columbus is one of the two teams to rank lower, coming in at 12.5 percent on the season. The Blue Jackets failed to convert on their first 26 power plays of the season, but have been at just under 20 percent since. Nothing wild in either case, but both groups have been better than their statistics show as of late.

McLellan re-emphasized the clears this morning and it was……..well, clear that the team was happy with progress in that department.

For what it’s worth the Kings have killed of 17 of their last 19 against the Blue Jackets and 216 of 245 all-time. Only the New Jersey Devils have a better penalty-killing record against Columbus than the Kings do. Here’s to history repeating itself and extending that run another night here in Ohio.

4 Lines, 6 Defensemen
It takes a village, so they say.

Back-to-backs are always made easier when everyone is pulling the rope in the same direction. And the emphasis there is on everyone. In these situations, you want to be able to roll four lines of forwards, maximize the usage of each of your six defensemen and naturally get both saves and whistles from your goaltender. Step one to being able to do that is to stay out of the penalty box, which slices your personnel down signficantly. Even if the Kings were happy with that unit last night, they’d rather not see them too regularly this evening.

Step two is to be able to, ideally, find each of their lines in a groove early in the game to establish structure and rhythm.

“In these situations, it’s hard to really worry about matches, because it can take players out of the game and it can affect rhythm, so you have to be able to rely on all four lines to play against whoever is out there and roll them,” McLellan said. “Sometimes, when you do that, you don’t get the jolt that you need to double-up a line or get them going, but you play they hand you’re dealt and you’ve got to react to situations as they arise.”

Tonight’s back-to-back set has a few added wrinkles, with tonight’s game an hour earlier, meaning the Kings have 23 hours between puck drops, as opposed to 24. There’s also a flight that was longer than usual in between back-to-back cities, as well as a border crossing and a cold climate, all of which added time between last night’s game ending in Montreal and the arrival in Columbus.

It’s not an excuse, and like every team in the Western Conference especially, these are situations you have to deal with when it comes to travel and longer trips away from home.

“We may discuss it before the game, there might be a motivating attachment to it, but we don’t just sit down and say we traveled, we got in late, we play at 6, they know that. This won’t be the last time we have to do this, certainly not the first and we’re not the only team. That’s the way it goes.”

However it motivates, or applies, it’s important for the Kings to play the right way despite it all to get a result.

On The Farm
It got buried last night, with the Kings also playing, but the Ontario Reign completed a two-game sweep of the Tucson Roadrunners yesterday evening, with consecutive overtime victories.

Ontario has won five of its last six games, dating back to late-November, led in large part by a solid start from goaltender Cal Petersen, after he was assigned by the Kings. Petersen is 3-1-0, with a .939 save percentage and a 2.01 goals-against average from four starts. He played four games in eight days, which was exactly the plan for Petersen going down.

The overtime GWG’s were scored by Quinton Byfield and Rasmus Kupari, a good sign to see both producing. Byfield has a four-game point streak and 12 points (7-5-12) from his last eight games, while defenseman Jordan Spence has a three-game point streak and nine points (2-7-9) in that stretch. Defenseman Jacob Moverare has had positive reports as well, good signs from those who have been up and down here so far this season.

Kings and Blue Jackets, tonight at 6 PM local, 3 PM Pacific from Nationwide Arena!