3/4 Preview – Korpisalo To Debut + Tonight’s Vitals, What Byfield’s Bringing, Grundstrom’s Return

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (35-20-8) vs. St. Louis Blues (27-29-5)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Saturday, March 4 @ 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 on home ice this evening after yesterday’s practice day, as they host the St. Louis Blues for the first time this season.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Kevin Fiala led the Kings with three assists when these teams met in St. Louis back in October. Fiala has six points (2-4-6) over his last four games versus the Blues. Forward Carl Grundstrom scored twice in the meeting in Missouri back in November, while forward Gabe Vilardi (1-1-2) also had a multi-point night.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings hit the ice for a full-team practice yesterday morning and opted for an optional morning skate here today in El Segundo.

Goaltender Joonas Korpisalo was the first off this morning, with the likelihood that he will make his organizational debut this evening with the Kings. Korpisalo has faced the Blues six times throughout his NHL career, posting a record of 3-3-0, with a .882 save percentage and a 3.99 goals-against average.

Between yesterday’s practice and today’s morning skate, here’s how the Kings could align this evening –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Edler – Durzi
Walker

Korpisalo
Copley

The Kings are expected to make one change on the backend, with Alex Edler checking in for Sean Walker. Todd McLellan shared that Vladislav Gavrikov will partner with Matt Roy tonight, which leaves Edler with Sean Durzi on the other pairing. Newly acquired forward Zack MacEwen had not yet arrived in Los Angeles by today’s morning skate. Forward Trevor Moore remains out of the lineup with an upper-body injury, though he seems to be progressing and can be activated at any time, without a corresponding transaction.

BLUES VITALS: St. Louis snapped a six-game losing streak on Thursday evening in San Jose, with tonight’s game the second of three on a Western swing.

Goaltender Jordan Binnington was off first this morning for St. Louis, making him tonight’s projected starting netminder versus the Kings. Binnington has faced the Kings 12 times throughout his NHL career, with a record of 5-5-2, a save percentage of .909 and a goals-against average of 2.72.

Per Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, here’s how the Blues lined up last time out –

Blues pregame lines, pairings:
Saad-Schenn-Kyrou
Buchnevich-Thomas-Kapanen
Blais-Brown-Leivo
Toropchenko-Alexandrov-Pitlick
Leddy-Parayko
Scandella-Faulk
Krug-Bortuzzo

— Jim Thomas (@jthom1) March 3, 2023

St. Louis made one transaction yesterday, acquiring forward Jacob Vrana from the Detroit Red Wings. Blues defenseman Torey Krug has eight points (2-6-8) over his last 12 games against the Kings. Former Kings draft pick Brayden Schenn is slated to center the top line tonight for the visitors.

Notes –
Joonastarting
Tonight’s game versus St. Louis figures to be goaltender Joonas Koripsalo’s debut with the Kings organization.

Korpisalo was acquired on Wednesday morning but in speaking with Todd McLellan, he felt it was best to give him Thursday to settle in, plus a practice day on Friday with the group, while showing faith in goaltender Pheonix Copley off what McLellan felt was a strong performance on the trip. Copley got the start in Thursday’s win over Montreal and put forth another solid performance. Now that Korpisalo has had a couple of days to integrate himself here in Los Angeles, it appears to be full systems go to make his first start with the Kings here this evening.

“I’m just trying to battle to stop every puck, and give it all out there,” Korpisalo said. “That’s what it is with goalies, our job is easy, just go and stop the puck. I just try to give 100 percent every single night and go from there.”

When speaking with Kings General Manager Rob Blake, he used many of the same words to describe Korpisalo’s game that McLellan has to describe Copley’s. The main word I took away was calm, which pertained to both his style of play and his mentality in the crease. His inaugural interview with the Kings exemplified the mentality part of it, while we’ll get our first glimpse at his stylistic approach here this evening.

Both McLellan and Blake have indicated that there is no set-in-stone plan for a split between Korpisalo and Copley at this time. Right now, it’s a 1-1 distribution appearing likely after tonight. There’s no agenda for a 10-10 split between the two of them, or anything favoring one way or the other. McLellan called both goaltenders important and signaled that both will get their opportunities to play. We’ll see how it shakes out moving forward, but today is Korpisalo’s day and we’ll go from there.

“We felt in this situation, we had Copley who played very well on the road trip and got us a big win in Winnipeg, we wanted him to understand that he’s valuable,” McLellan said this morning. “We didn’t go trade for a goaltender to get rid of Pheonix, we traded for a goaltender to help Pheonix and the pair of them are going to go on forward. So, it was a little bit of that and it was also the travel and getting comfortable with surroundings, that type of stuff for Korpisalo. The environment that was around us allowed us to make that decision, we knew we were going to play Korpisalo today.”

It’s clear that the Kings view the tandem of Korpisalo and Copley as a split situation at this time. Both will have the opportunity to play down the stretch and McLellan indicated on Thursday that both are extremely important down the stretch. The above quote seems to reinforce that point.

What Byfield Is Bringing
From the fan perspective, there seems to be two schools of thought surrounding Quinton Byfield and everyone seems to agree on the first part.

It’s either “he’s doing a lot of things well and the production will come” or “he’s doing a lot of things well but he isn’t producing”. Everyone is really saying the same thing, it’s just how it’s framed and how it’s phrased. Byfield is bringing a lot to the first line right now and I don’t think it’s at all a coincidence that the offensive production from his linemates – Adrian Kempe and Anze Kopitar – is through the roof since he was moved to that line. The numbers are glarlingly obvious.

9/11 w/ 55 – 4.15 GF/60 vs. 1.62 GA/60
9/11 w/o 55 – 2.33 GF/60 vs. 2.58 GA/60

While the expected versions of those numbers are indeed tighter, the high-danger chances for, with Byfield versus without, are extremely high and the chances against across the board are much lower. That’s not saying that Byfield is driving the line, because Kopitar and Kempe, even before, still had solid production. But perhaps Byfield is enabling Kopitar and Kempe to do certain things that is resulting in production.

“I think if you look at the physicality he’s brought to that line, in comparison to when he had his role as the center maybe on the third line, it’s really augmented the other two and he’s probably feeling pretty darn good about himself and he should,” McLellan said. “You can’t always base it on individual stats, collectively they’ve done a really good job and he’s played a huge part in that so far.”

The bench boss went on to add that the Kings still envision Byfield as a center in the long haul, still as a guy who can carry his own line as opposed to being a complementary piece to others. He’ll still need to grow and develop into that player but he’s still only 20 years old and he’s logging first-line minutes on an extremely productive line.

If you look at a play like the 2-on-1 opportunity he had with Kopitar against Montreal, eventually that puck needs to go in and it will. McLellan said as much. Look at his assist late in the game, though, to showcase his playmaking ability. It’s physicality first to separate man from puck and vision and passing ability to find Kopitar in front for the goal.

“I think it’s always been there, I’ve just got to do it a lot more and be more effective with it,” Byfield said of his checking. “I didn’t do that too much in juniors, I didn’t always have to, but it’s another level here. Getting that puck separation, I just try to find guys and want to keep on doing it.”

In time, individual numbers will rise. In the moment, a video like the one above showcases that it’s already coming. More to follow.

Carl’s Comeback
Carl Grundstrom is now two games back into action off of an injury that cost him around six weeks of game time. So far, so good in the words of his head coach.

“[We’ve got] what we wanted to,” McLellan said of Grundstrom’s play. “Physicality, straight lines, finishing checks, creating opportunities off the forecheck, blocked shots, shooting it when he gets the opportunity. Pretty straightforward with Carl Grundstrom and that’s when he’s playing his best.”

Hear from Grundstrom below, who talked about how he’s feeling through two games, how much he likes the style of hockey this time of the year and getting back up to pace as things pick up.

Kings and Blues, tonight at 7:30 PM from Crypto.com Arena. See you there!