A Look Ahead + Monday Morning Roster Moves, Lemieux Skating Again

It’s good to be home, Insiders.

Beginning with Saturday’s win over San Jose, the Kings have begun a stretch of 11 of 14 games at Crypto.com Arena. The three that aren’t? One-off games that won’t require more than one night at a hotel on the road.

Entering the day, the Kings have played the third-most road games in the NHL behind only Arizona, which had an altered schedule due to their arena arrangements, and Anaheim, which is just one ahead of the Kings. It’s certainly been an aggressive start to date, but following a difficult win versus the Sharks, the schedule is now set up for an extended run here at home and with that, a return to routine and normalcy.

The contest against San Jose was the 24th time this season the Kings played a game with just one day off, one game shy of the highest total in the NHL. That volume of games combined with the amount of travel and away contests in the first portion of the season has led to the feeling of a very aggressive start. Compared to other teams around the league, that has been the case.

“We used our first third up pretty quickly and we’re into the second third fairly quick,” Todd McLellan detailed. “The game we played in Buffalo the other night was our 32nd and I think that’s the game where Colorado is going to go into their Christmas break, that shows you how far ahead we are in games played. Six is a significant number at this time of the year, but there’s also nothing we can do about it.”

From a league-wide point of view, the Kings did use up that first third of their schedule more quickly than most, if not all other teams.

27 games is the de facto one-third mark of the season. In that span, the Kings collected 30 points, which is slightly behind what you might consider to be the standard “playoff pace” if you will. Factoring in what happened in that span though, it’s not a bad number to have in the bank account, either. When you factor in that the Kings reached that point in the schedule quicker than most, meaning less rest and practice time early in the season to get there, it adds some context.

“We just have to continue to play,” McLellan said. “If you take – and I explained this to the players at the one-third mark – if you take those third segments, 27 games or whatever it was, 27 and a half, if you can come out of that with 32 points each time that gives you 96. 96 is kind of the cut line, so if those are the segmented goals and we used our first third up pretty quick.”

As the Kings dive deeper into that second third of the season, it’s good to be home and good to begin a stretch of games that fall mostly here in California.

Overall at home this season, the Kings have been solid though not spectacular, with a 7-5-2 record that places them right in the middle of the pack around the league when it comes to winning percentage. Last homestand saw the Kings take points from three of four games, but it came via a 1-1-2 record. The homestand prior was four wins and eight points from four games played.

The Kings will certainly hope to trend closer to the stretch of six wins from seven home games in late October and early November, a run that included wins over three teams currently in playoff positions. Saturday’s game also began a stretch of three consecutive games within the division and six straight within the conference. Overall, seven of those 14 games fall within the division and 11 are against Western Conference opposition. Good time to be home.

There is naturally the added contingency of this point in the schedule falling right around the holidays, which means that the Kings, like every team around the league, will have three days off per the CBA, to allow for the league’s annual holiday break from December 24 – 26.

“Around Christmas, everybody’s schedules get compressed, you have mandatory Christmas days off so you lose practice days there too,” McLellan added. “We have looked at the schedule though and we are at home a little bit more, so we’re looking forward to that.”

Nonetheless, however, the Kings will certainly have a more routine go of things as we finish the month of December and eventually work our way into January. The next extended trip doesn’t begin until January 21 and that’s another six-game swing that takes the team into the All-Star Break.

That means more practice time and more rest time, with the former beginning this morning here in El Segundo – the Kings are scheduled to take the ice shortly, at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.

“We’re always looking at the schedule and obviously the 11 of the last 16 were on the road and that’s not an easy task, but in our next 30-day segment we only play three road games,” McLellan added. “We’re going to go to Arizona, Colorado and Vegas and those are they’re not easy trips, they’re not easy games to play, but they’re not seven-game road trips, so it does give us some home time. Home time usually means more rest and home time usually means more practice.”

Practice time, rest, routine. All welcomed signs for a team that’s had among the most aggressive schedules out of the gates.

As the team takes the ice this morning, they’ll do so with the additions of forward Rasmus Kupari and defenseman Jordan Spence, who were recalled from AHL-Ontario earlier today. Both players played in Saturday’s win over San Jose, including Spence’s season debut, and both players were assigned to the AHL yesterday though the moves turned out to be more of the paper transaction variety than firm transactions. Also expected to be with the group today is forward Brendan Lemieux, who skated in a non-contact red jersey during Saturday’s morning skate. Lemieux has been out of action for more than a month with a lower-body injury. He started skating on his own prior to the six-game trip, continued that when the Kings were on the road and is now back with the full group. Good signs for a player who has carved himself out an important role with the Kings and his presence is missed.

Practice coverage to follow from today’s skate!