2/21 Preview – Back On The Road + A Difficult Trip Ahead, Moore On Coming Back, McLellan on Mentality

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (32-18-7) @ Minnesota Wild (30-21-5)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Tuesday, February 21 @ 5:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Xcel Energy Center – St. Paul, MN
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings are on the road this evening as they enter into a five-game trip, which starts this evening against the Minnesota Wild.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Anze Kopitar leads the Kings with four points (0-4-4) against Minnesota from the first two meetings this season. Forwards Adrian Kempe and Gabriel Vilardi have each scored twice from the two games, a pair of LA victories. Kevin Fiala will play in Minnesota for the second time since he was traded from the Wild in the offseason. He tallied three points (1-2-3) in the first matchup.

KINGS VITALS: Following a full-team practice yesterday back in El Segundo, the Kings chose to hold an optional morning skate today in Minnesota.

Goaltender Pheonix Copley was off first this morning in Minnesota, signaling that he will be tonight’s starter between the pipes for the Kings. Copley has faced Minnesota once in his NHL career, as he made 26 saves on 28 shots in a 5-2 victory with the Washington Capitals back in 2018

As shared in yesterday’s practice report, here’s how the Kings aligned during the full-team practice back in California –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Durzi – Roy
Edler – Walker
Bjornfot

Copley / Quick

Yesterday’s practice gives the indication that the Kings could make two changes from the group that faced Arizona on Saturday. Defenseman Alex Edler appears set to check back in for Tobias Bjornfot, while Arthur Kaliyev looks likely to return to the lineup in place of Brendan Lemieux. The Kings have four extra skaters on this trip, as Bjornfot and Lemieux are joined by forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan as well as forward Carl Grundstrom, who is with the team while on injured reserve. Will see if observations from the last two skates hold up here this evening.

WILD VITALS: Minnesota has played five consecutive one-goal games entering tonight’s action, consisting of one regulation win, two shootout wins, one shootout loss and one regulation loss.

Minnesota has employed a rotation in net between Marc-Andre Fleury and Filip Gustavsson, with Gustavsson expected to get the nod this evening against the Kings. Gustavsson has faced the Kings three times throughout his NHL career, posting a record of 0-3-0, with a .913 save percentage and a 3.10 goals-against average.

Per Joe Smith of The Athletic, here’s how the Wild lined up last time out, with the expectation of no changes tonight –

#mnwild lines:
Kaprizov-Hartman-Zuccarello
Beckman-Ek-Boldy
Greenway-Gaudreau-Duhaime
Shaw-Dewar-Reaves

Middleton-Spurgeon
Brodin-Dumba
Merrill-Goligoski

Gustavsson

— Joe Smith (@JoeSmithNHL) February 19, 2023

Since the start of the 2020-21 season, Kirill Kaprizov (8) and Joel Eriksson Ek (7) rank fourth and fifth in goals scored versus the Kings. Kaprizov also ranks sixth in the NHL with 13 goals since January 1, which accounts for 27 percent of his team’s goals in that span, the highest percentage in the NHL.

Difficult Trip
Insiders, a quick look ahead. By record, this is the most difficult road trip the Kings will face all season.

All five teams the Kings will visit are currently in possession of a playoff position. Tonight’s opponent, Minnesota, and Friday’s opponent, the New York Islanders, are currently in wild-card positions as of this writing. The Kings will also face the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers, who are currently on track to square off in the first round within the Metropolitan Division, while the Winnipeg Jets currently have home ice in Round 1 in the Central Division.

Combined, the teams faced on this trip have a record of 164-95-27. That makes a winning percentage of .621 and 69 games over .500. A challenging task, indeed.

“I think the five teams that we play here are all playoff teams, they are all competing for playoff implications night after night and I think the intensity of the games are going to go up,” Todd McLellan said this morning. “With that being said, we can only worry about this one and this team that we’re playing against and they’ve played really good. I know that they maybe haven’t won as many as they wanted, but it wasn’t through lack of effort or commitment to their game, sometimes a bounce didn’t go their way, at least in the pre-scout that’s what we saw it. We’ll have our hands full.”

As McLellan indicated, starting a trip like this has both short-term and long-term approaches.

On one hand, the Kings are not immune to knowing what lies ahead. They can look at the publically printed schedule and they have their five-game itinerary in advance. They know they’re playing five, playoff teams in a row, all on the road. They also know that from a preparation and playing perspective, there’s nothing to be gained by looking ahead. You can only try to win the game in front of you and that’s tonight’s game against the Wild.

Sean Durzi – These trips, you have to take it a game at a time, but looking at the whole thing, it’s a key part of the season for us. It’s the biggest road trip of the year, it’s probably the biggest five games we’ve got so far, it’s going to be a good stretch here. We know we’ve got to bring our best and it’s the point of the season where it can make or break the season, it’s important for us to show up and play our game, do our best. Like I said before, one game at a time on these trips, focus on Minnesota tonight and move on.

Trevor Moore – Minnesota is a tough team, they’ve always given us a tough game and we know this road trip, we talked about it, it’s going to be a tough one, the toughest one of the year for sure, they’re good teams that are in the playoff hunt or in the playoffs. It’s a great challenge. It’s a good opportunity to get some tough points against some good teams, that’s where we’re at.

Tough one tonight, tough ones to come. Report back in five games!

Moore Talks Return
Diving a bit deeper with Moore, he’s now played three games since returning from injury earlier this month.

Moore is such a key piece to both the Kings and to his line when he’s at full go. Working his way back the way he has, he hasn’t felt like he’s quite been at full go so far and it does take some time when coming back into the lineup the way that he has. Can’t say he’s been eased back in either, resuming his usual place on the second line with responsibilities and minutes on special teams as well. It’s been difficult, but he’s getting there.

“It’s been alright, good spots and bad spots, the hardest part has been getting my legs back to where they were,” he said. “You can bag skate all you want, but until you get in those game situations and forecheck, backcheck, take a hit [you can’t replicate it]. That’s been the hardest part, but it’s getting there, though.”

The statline has been relatively consistent in that span. Moore has logged between 11:45 and 12:45 in time on ice at 5-on-5 over his first three games back. Not necessarily as high as he was at points earlier this season, but the Kings are also deeper now than they were in say December, with more of an ability to roll four lines consistently.

With Moore on the ice, the Kings have controlled 52 percent of shot attempts, to complement 56 percent of scoring chances and 53 percent of high-danger chances. Moore has spent the bulk of his time on the left with Phillip Danault and Viktor Arvidsson, providing a familiar landing spot as he’s gotten back into action.

“I think it’s getting there,” he said of his line. “Like I said, I think that I’m kind of focusing more on myself right now, making sure that I’m good to go. Those guys are great, they always play great, so it’s just making sure that I’m ready to go.”

An interesting take from a player who rarely has to focus on himself, because of the consistency in his play on most night. As he continues to get back into game shape, all signs would point to things continuing to go in the right direction.

McLellan on Mentality
Lastly, Insiders, hopefully one of the last quotes we’re using here based on playing with a lead.

It was actually one of you in the comments yesterday who pointed out that the word “mentality” was used by several of the players who were asked about the concept of playing with a lead. I asked Todd McLellan today what the ideal mentality is in those situations. His full quote, below –

“Foot on the gas and details, but not taking anything for granted. I think when you’re up, you have the lead and you’re comfortable, you think ‘well I can get away with this one.’ Well, you might get away with that one but the next one you’re not going to and all sudden it starts to snowball. It’s hard to play with a lead, a 5-1 lead, it’s hard to play with that, but that’s part of game management. That could happen in a playoff series, that could happen in game 78 that you need to win and if you haven’t experienced it and haven’t dealt with it the right way, then you put yourself in a crappy situation during those moments. We’ve experienced it, we’ve got to fix it and we know that.”

Kings and Wild, Insiders, tonight at 5 PM Pacific!