3/2 Preview – Gavrikov To Debut + Projected Alignment, Team Mentality, Quick to VGK

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (34-20-8) vs. Montreal Canadiens (26-30-4)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Thursday, March 2 @ 7:30 PM Pacific
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings are back home to begin a stretch with 10 of the next 11 games coming here in Los Angeles, as they host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday evening.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Adrian Kempe has seven goals and nine points from eight career games against the Canadiens, including a goal in Montreal earlier this season. Kempe was one of four Kings with a goal, and eight Kings with a point, during the 4-2 victory at Centre Bell back in December.

KINGS VITALS: Following the off day yesterday, the Kings hit the ice for a full-team skate here this morning, with the newly acquired duo of Vladislav Gavrikov and Joonas Korpisalo joining the team for the first time.

Goaltender Pheonix Copley was off first this morning, with Todd McLellan confirming that he will get the start this evening against Montreal. Copley earned the win over the Canadiens back in December and has a 1-0-0 record from two appearances, to go along with a .864 save percentage and a 4.47 goals-against average. Regarding Korpisalo, the Kings wanted to give him a practice tomorrow to get settled and they’ll make decisions from there on the goaltending rotation.

Here’s how the team lined up during line rushes earlier today –

Byfield – Kopitar – Kempe
Fiala – Danault – Arvidsson
Iafallo – Lizotte – Vilardi
Grundstrom – Kupari – Kaliyev

Anderson – Doughty
Durzi – Roy
Gavrikov – Walker

Copley
Korpisalo

Kings defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov is expected to make his organizational debut here this evening and skated on a pairing with Sean Walker during this morning’s skate. More on him below. No other changes are expected in tonight’s lineup from the group that faced Winnipeg on Tuesday evening. Forward Trevor Moore is day-to-day with an upper-body injury and “felt better” when Todd McLellan last spoke with him. Will see how he progresses between now and Saturday’s game against St. Louis.

CANADIENS VITALS: Montreal enters tonight’s game with six wins over its last nine games, with two more games to come on a four-game West Coast swing.

Per Luc Gelinas of RDS, goaltender Jake Allen is expected to make his second consecutive start this evening and should play versus the Kings. Allen has posted a record of 6-5-1 all-time versus the Kings, to go along with a .933 save percentage and a 2.14 goals-against average.

Per Simon-Olivier Lorange of La Presse, here’s how the Canadiens aligned on Tuesday in San Jose –

Canadien: bienvenue/welcome Denis Gurianov

Hoffman-Suzuki-Gurianov
RHP-Drouin-Anderson
Pitlick-Dvorak-Ylönen
Pezzetta-Tierney-Belzile

Guhle-Savard
Matheson-Barron
Harris-Kovacevic

Allen

Pas encore prêt: Edmundson

— Simon-Olivier Lorange (@SO_Lorange) March 1, 2023

Montreal has several players on injured reserve, including forwards Cole Caufield, Brendan Gallagher and Juraj Slafkovsky. Defenseman Joel Edmundson is also currently out of action and is considered to be questionable for tonight’s game. Forward Josh Anderson has five points from his last six games played versus the Kings.

Notes –
The Gift Of Gav
A whirlwind 48 hours for defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov, which will end this evening at Crypto.com Arena as he plays in his first game as a member of the LA Kings.

It’s exciting for a few reasons, naturally starting with his arrival with a new organization and a new team. Gavrikov is also working his way back into the lineup, because he’s been held out in Columbus due to “trade-related reasons” since he last played on February 11. With 20 games between now and what the Kings hope will be the postseason, it’s important to get him back into games as soon as possible.

“With Gavrikov, he hasn’t played since the middle of February, so he is going to play tonight,” Todd McLellan said earlier today. “We briefly went over a few things with him this morning, as far as how we want to play with structure and what some of our responsibilities are on the ice and then we’ve just got to let him play. Being off for two weeks isn’t going to help him, but he’s excited about playing.”

McLellan confirmed that Gavrikov will debut with Sean Walker as his defensive partner here this evening, though he encouraged those listening not to write the team’s defensive pairings in pen at this stage…..if anyone still uses pens to write things down. The pairings moving forward are fluid and McLellan reinforced that both Gavrikov and Joonas Korpisalo will get the chance to practice tomorrow and then we’ll see how things shake out there. The easiest solution for tonight’s was to not disrupt the Top-4 and slot Gavrikov onto the third pairing, undertanding the need to get him into games immediately and let him ramp back up into top form.

For tonight, it’s important to get Gavrikov integrated into the lineup and up and running as soon as possible. That was Rob Blake’s number one initiative on yesterday’s call as well. That process will begin against the Canadiens and we’ll go from there.

“It’s probably a lot more difficult for Gavy than it is for us,” McLellan said. “There’s a lot going on in his world right now, he’ll be nervous, new teammates, coaches are going to be using words that won’t mean anything to him but it means something to everyone else, systems and structure. We have to play him and it won’t be perfect, but I think he’ll do a really good job.”

For Gavrikov’s part, an obvious excitement to get back into an NHL game after the unknowns of waiting. He admitted that it wasn’t easy to be forced out of action for such a long, extended stretch of games. Typically, when players are held out, it’s 1-2 games maximum, as it was with Korpisalo. For Gavrikov, however, it was much longer and that drained on him a bit.

Now that the trade is officially behind him, he’s extremely excited to get here and get up and skating with the Kings.

“I’m just so excited to be here, excited to play right away, it didn’t take long,” he said this morning. “I’m just excited because I was out of the lineup for the last couple games, which was tough for me, but right now I’m ready to go and I’m just so happy that I’m here.”

As he approaches his first game with the Kings, the word on his mind is simple.

His game isn’t necessarily a complex one anyways, but being his first game with a new organization and his first game in more than two weeks as a whole, keeping things simple and getting off on the right foot is important for him. That’s the focus on night one.

“Today, it’s going to be a simple game for me, because I haven’t played in a while, it’s going to be harder than usual on the body, but I will figure it out,” he added. “It’s not going to be a problem. With some tactics stuff, I’ve spoken about it with the coaches already, I’ve got to do some adjusting and it takes awhile anyways, but it won’t be a problem.”

Team Mentality
When you’re in a playoff spot and two points out of the division lead, coming off a huge comeback win to conclude a road trip and recently added two key pieces to the group, team mentality…..feels like it should be a foregone conclusion. However, when a part of that trade sees a franchise icon, one of the greatest players in the history of the organization go the other way, it certainly complicates the matter a bit.

McLellan is hopeful that the primary objective of the organization is what should keep everyone on track – winning. That’s still the focus and that’s what he hopes shines through above all else.

“They want to win, that’s what we’re all here for,” McLellan said. “Those words can flow out of my mouth and that’s not to diminish Quickie, but you asked me the question and the players want to win. It was three years ago, when we finished the 56-game season in Colorado – look at the lineup then and look at the lineup now. Players were knocking on the door saying we want to win, let’s make this team better and the coaching staff was doing it, the management was doing it. If you want to win, you’re working towards it and you’ve got to overcome a lot of stuff.”

That’s not to say it’s easy for the group, specifically Drew Doughty or Anze Kopitar, who went from riding the high after Kopitar’s four-goal game in a win over Winnipeg to what Doughty described as the lowest of lows in finding out that Quick was traded 15 minutes later. That’s not easy, when you think about the three players being teammates for every step along the way in their careers, including a pair of championships.

“A core guy left and it’s not an easy day, especially for those two, who were teammates and went on a championship run more than once with Quickie,” he added. “To expect them to come in here and jump up and down, be full of smiles, would not be a very good expectation on our behalf, but we also have to move on. We felt that we needed to address a certain area of the game, the organization did, and unfortunately Quickie was a part of that decision.”

For their part, Doughty and Kopitar did not shy away from the fact that both players are hurting from the trade and how difficult he move was for both players. Sure, they spent time together on the plane ride back and sure, their friendship is one that won’t just go away now that they are no longer teammates. But it’s extremely difficult and it’s expected to be. They’re also focused on winning another championship and that requires focus on what’s to come.

Both players addressed the media today on a variety of topics, their interviews are shown below in full.

Quick To VGK
Lastly, Insiders, obviously not a Kings-specific trade, but when it pertains to a franchise icon, it kind of is? Either way, the Vegas Golden Knights have acquired goaltender Jonathan Quick from the Columbus Blue Jackets, in exchange for goaltender Michael Hutchinson and a seventh-round draft pick. Vegas currently sees their top three goaltenders on the shelf, so the destination makes sense, with 50 percent of Quick’s salary maintained by the Blue Jackets in the deal. Cross out that circle on your calendars for March 16 and add it to April 6!

In the video above, the question was asked and I believe it was Kopitar that took it, wishing Quick the best regardless of destination and expressing the desire for Quick to find the right place to continue his career. Speaking objectively, Vegas feels like a great spot for that to happen.

QUICK TO VEGAS ⚔️

The @GoldenKnights have acquired Jonathan Quick from the @BlueJacketsNHL! #NHLTradeDeadline pic.twitter.com/hw6FiO0Zbt

— NHL (@NHL) March 2, 2023

So, so much content from today’s media availability that it couldn’t possibly all fit into today’s game preview. Over the coming days, we’ll share as much of it as possible, knowing that more could follow with just under 24 hours remaining before the trade deadline. Never know what could change between now and then, so we’ll be on the ready to adjust and to adapt!