2/22 Preview – Full Team Skate in NJ + Team Toughness, Defensive Scoring, McLellan Interview

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (32-19-7) @ New Jersey Devils (37-15-5)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Thursday, February 23 @ 4:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Prudential Center – Newark, NJ
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings have moved into the Eastern Time Zone for the first of three consecutive games in the greater New York area, beginning tonight against the New Jersey Devils.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Defenseman Drew Doughty led the Kings with two points (0-2-2) during the first matchup of the season between these two teams, while forwards Kevin Fiala and Anze Kopitar each scored in the defeat. Forward Viktor Arvidsson has eight points (3-5-8) from his last nine games played versus New Jersey.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings opted to hold an off-ice workout yesterday and went the route of a full-team morning skate today in New Jersey.

Goaltender Pheonix Copley is projected to get the start again this evening for the Kings, after he was off first this morning in New Jersey. Copley has faced the Devils twice throughout his NHL career, posting a record of 1-1-0, with a .877 save percentage and a 3.51 goals-against average.

Line rushes from this morning’s skate are listed below –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Durzi – Roy
Bjornfot – Walker
Edler

Copley / Quick

Without a practice yesterday, the Kings held the full-team morning skate today in New Jersey. The Kings were generally happy with their performance last time out, even though it resulted in a defeat. As such, no apparent changes to the forward group this morning from how the team lined up against Minnesota on Tuesday evening. Should that remain the case, forwards Jaret Anderson-Dolan and Brendan Lemieux would be out. On defense, it appears Tobias Bjornfot may check in tonight in place of Alex Edler, skating alongside Sean Walker. Forward Carl Grundstrom remains on injured reserve, the only Kings player unavailable at this time.

DEVILS VITALS: New Jersey enters tonight’s action with a 13-0-1 record this season against the Pacific Division, with only games versus the Kings and Golden Knights remaining on their schedule.

With Mackenzie Blackwood currently out day-to-day, consider goaltender Vitek Vanacek tonight’s projected starter in New Jersey. Vanacek has faced the Kings just once throughout his NHL career to date, a 3-2 defeat in December 2021 as a member of the Washington Capitals, as he made 21 saves on 24 shots.

Per Devils team reporter Amanda Stein, here’s how tonight’s hosts lined up at this morning’s skate –

Morning skate lines and pairings for #NJDevils ahead of the LA Kings:

• Zetterlund taking most reps on 4th line, Bastian took one.

• Boqvist bumped up

• Smith skating as extra D, likely the scratch

• No Blackwood at skate

• Bahl back in

🥅 Vanecek and Schmid pic.twitter.com/jNJunr9kFa

— Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) February 23, 2023

New Jersey forward Jack Hughes is tied for the league lead with 29 even-strength goals entering tonight’s action, while his 49 even-strength points rank sixth in the NHL. Defenseman Dougie Hamilton leads the league in power-play goals (8) by a defenseman and ranks second in the NHL in goals by a defenseman overall (16).

Notes –
Talkin’ Toughness
I read the comments, Insiders.

You want size. You want toughness.

As I listened back to the State of the Franchise presentation last week, I thought this might be a good place to share a couple of comments made by Rob Blake and Todd McLellan, who chatted on the subject a bit in response to a fan question. Both men acknowledged that they do not have the biggest team in the NHL. That much is apparent. What both emphasized, however, is that lacking size in their opinions does not equal lacking toughness.

Blake shared a conversation he had on the road with a General Manager of an Eastern Conference team, who remarked that the Kings have a “big and heavy” team, which makes them difficult to play against. In his mind, Blake took that as a complement to how difficult the Kings can be to play against when they’re at their best. Feeling bigger and heavier than they are is a testament to the style of play above all else. While the Kings lack in the height and weight columns, they provide in other areas.

Blake – You can get a whole bunch of guys that are big, but if they’re not effective in different things, right now, the way our team plays tough is because they’re in your face, it’s the structure they provide everyday and they’re not easy to play against. When you’re in their face all the time, I think it’s more of a team element in that aspect, it’s something that we’ve taken pride in, but a lot of it has to do with the structure we play with.

McLellan – The other thing is defining toughness. It’s not just about dropping the gloves and fighting, that happens once every three games in the league and we’re not the lowest team in the league as far as fights for per game played, we’re not the highest either, it’s really not that important of a stat. We’ve asked our players over the last a little bit to take up the shot blocking, Sean Durzi, Phil Danault the other night, we’re up 6-0 and we’re blocking shots, we’ve talked about toughness in faceoffs. That isn’t often recognized as toughness, because we all like a good fight, but it isn’t as recognized or noticed when all of those little things happen in the game. They all add up at the end of the night.

McLellan and Blake went on a bit and reflected on looking over at a team like Buffalo the other night and just seeing how big they are. McLellan knows the Kings are not the biggest team in the league, but he believes his group plays bigger than it is.

“I look at our team and we’re not that big, but that’s okay because we play big,” McLellan added. “When we get out there, we’re not intimidated, we don’t get pushed around. We’re going to lose some physical battles in certain areas of the ice, of course, but we’re going to win a lot of them too and that’s toughness. Defining what toughness is, it’s really important to the organization and where the game is going.”

Love it or hate it, an important conversation to share, in my opinion.

Scoring From Defensemen
With two goals last week, defenseman Matt Roy pushed the LA Kings beyond last seaason’s total in goals scored by defensemen. Roy’s goals against Buffalo and Arizona were the 22nd and 23rd goals scored by defensemen so far this season. The tally versus the Sabres made it one more goal than the Kings had in that category last season, in 27 fewer games.

Now, not surpassing last season’s total would have been a pretty sizable problem, seeing as the Kings finished 31st of the 32 teams in the NHL in goals by defensemen a season ago, one of the lowest totals in recent memory. Drew Doughty led the way last season with seven goals and though he’s seen his goals scored dip a bit this season, he’s produced points above his career pace (0.65 points-per-game). A lot can be explained through his power-play production, with his 18 PPA already the second-highest total of his NHL career, while his two power-play goals are his fewest since 2014. His expected PPG this season is higher than each of the past two seasons, when he scored 6 and 4. Easily explained by a lower than usual shooting percentage that is likely to even out over time.

It’s been Roy (8) and defenseman Sean Durzi (6) who have led the way this season strictly in terms of goals scored and those players play together on a defensive pairing. Six of Roy’s goals have come on the road this season, tied for the ninth most in the NHL amongst defensemen. He noted that contributing more offensively is something he’s wanted to do since coming into the league and his heavy shot, combined with his AHL pedigree (8 goals from 45 games in 2019-20) suggested it was doable.

“I want to contribute offensively and I think this year I’m jumping in the play more and picking my spots better,” Roy said. “That, along with my teammates and my d-partner Durzi and everyone making their own plays. I guess I’m just getting the bounces and finding the luck this year.”

We’re now seeing those things translate into more offensive production and it’s helped to increase a total that the Kings set out to increase at the beginning of the season. The Kings are shooting more from the backend, though it’s not an extremely sizeable increase, going from 17.7 shot attempts per game to 18.3. The Kings are also seeing their shots get through, unblocked, at a similarly small increase. Scoring chances and high-danger chances have also seen a small uptick, though nothing wild. Shooting percentage is up from 2.9% to 4.4% perhaps leveling out being the primary factor here. Perhaps, an improvement better explained by those executing.

“It’s good offensive movements, offensive awareness, we’ve talked about a couple things as a team on how we can provide more offense from the back end,” Durzi added. “Obviously on the powerplay, it’s nice to do that, but to have it at even strength, which I think we’ve seen a little bit more of this year, is pretty important. I think all of us have done a better job of getting in at the right times, o-zone movement, producing in zone and I think it’s showing up.”

When In Rome
Lastly, Insiders, Kings Head Coach Todd McLellan joined Jim Rome for a segment of his show yesterday afternoon. Sharing a short video clip, as well as the full audio file, below –

A lot of media for the Kings here in New York yesterday, with several Kings players visiting NHL properties. Phil Danault and Sean Durzi visited the NHL offices, which included a meeting with Gary Bettman, while Mikey Anderson and Quinton Byfield were both at NHL Network studios in Secaucus. I was fortunate enough to follow Danault and Durzi for the day, will share a bit of behind the scenes content this weekend.

Kings and Devils, tonight at 4 PM Pacific time from New Jersey!