4/4 Preview – Full Team Skate Today + Bjornfot Recalled (Again), Run It Back, Home Cookin’

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (45-22-10) vs. Edmonton Oilers (45-23-5)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Tuesday, April 4 @ 7:30 PM Pacific
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: ESPN – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: In a battle of teams who are currently slotted to square off in the postseason, the Kings and Oilers conclude their season series this evening in Los Angeles.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Viktor Arvidsson leads the Kings with five points (1-4-5) and a +3 rating from the season series versus the Oilers so far this season. Forwards Kevin Fiala and Adrian Kempe each had two power-play goals when these teams last met at Crypto.com Arena. Since he entered the league, Drew Doughty leads all defensemen around the NHL at +27, while he ranks second in goals (13) and points (41).

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held a full-team morning skate today in El Segundo, following the team off-day yesterday upon returning home from the road.

The Kings will turn back to goaltender Pheonix Copley this evening at Crypto.com Arena, after a stout performance in Seattle against the Kraken over the weekend. Copley has faced the Oilers three times throughout his professional career, with a record of 2-1-0 with a .930 save percentage and a 2.07 goals-against average.

Line rushes from this morning are shown below –

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

Gavrikov – Doughty
Durzi – Roy
Bjornfot – Walker

Copley
Korpisalo

The line combinations listed above are as the team took rushes this morning during practice, but not necessarily an indication for tonight, as we’ve seen in the past. Per the rushes above, forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan was the only player on the ice not in rushes and would be tonight’s healthy scratch if they hold true. Regarding the quartet of players who did not skate today, no updates provided on their status at this time, beyond that they were not on the ice with the full group during morning skate.

“The guys who are in the lineup tonight will play, and the ones who aren’t, won’t.”

OILERS VITALS: Since the NHL’s Trade Deadline, Edmonton has been the best team in the NHL by point totals, leading the league with 25 points in that span.

Goaltender Stuart Skinner was the starting goaltender when these teams met in Edmonton last week and with no reports from the Oilers morning skate, we’ll assume he gets the nod again tonight. Skinner has posted a record of 1-1-0 from three appearances versus the Kings, with a .949 save percentage and a 2.11 goals-against average.

No reports yet regarding an Oilers lineup for this evening. Edmonton opted for an 11/7 approach and could go the same way this evening –

Tonight has a look of 11 & 7. Here’s what Oilers look like in warmup:

RNH-McDavid-Hyman
Kane-Draisaitl-Yamamoto
Foegele-Bjugstad-Janmark
Kostin-Shore-Ryan

Nurse-Ceci
Ekholm-Bouchard
Kulak-Desharnais
Broberg

Skinner@LouDeBrusk joins me for the call on @Sportsnet at 8 MT. pic.twitter.com/6jE7fU632A

— Jack Michaels (@EdmontonJack) March 29, 2023

Edmonton recently saw several players honored with leaguewide awards. Connor McDavid was named the league’s First Star of the Month, while Leon Draisaitl was honored as both the Second Star of the Month for March and last week’s Second Star of the Week. Additionally, goaltender Stuart Skinner was named the NHL’s Rookie of the Month for March.

Notes –
Toby! Yeah!

First and foremost, Insiders, the Kings have recalled defenseman Tobias Bjornfot on an emergency basis and it looks as if he’ll check into the lineup tonight. As the Kings finished Sunday’s game in Vancouver with just five healthy defensemen, the five who were on the ice this morning outside of Bjornfot, he would be eligible to play on the emergency recall and he is eligible to remain with the Kings as long as the team has just five healthy blueliners.

Bjornfot was recalled on an emergency basis before the games in Seattle and Vancouver but did not play in either contest and was assigned to Ontario after each game. When six defensemen were healthy and able to go, the corresponding roster move was completed to comply with league rules.

Bjornfot’s 70 NHL games a season ago led the Kings on the backend and he’s appeared in eight more so far in the 2022-23 campaign, tallying one assist. Bjornfot played in this level of game down the stretch a season ago, though an injury late in the season limited his games towards the end and he found himself on the outside looking in during the postseason. Still, he’s about as comforting a recall as you can have at this time of the season.

“Yeah, that’s a good thing,” McLellan said of Bjornot’s experience. “He’s comfortable in the locker room, he knows our structure, our system, our language, he knows his teammates, he’s played against these teams. It should be seamless.”

At the AHL level with Ontario, Bjornfot has been counted upon more in a leadership role, as a rotating alternate captain at points in the season, while logging top-pairing, shutdown minutes with the Reign. He’s typically partnered with Jordan Spence at the AHL level and also has experience alongside Matt Roy and Sean Durzi, from extended stretches together last season, as well as games here and there with Drew Doughty and Sean Walker.

Partner familiarity, check. Team and system familiarity, check. Stretch-run familiarity, check. Good signs for number 7.

“It’s good to have that, I’ve played with all of those guys before, so that makes it a lot easier for me,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been in these situations before, too, so that’s good.”

Coming up at this time of the season still provides a level of excitement for any player and Bjornfot is no exception.

He’s jumping into a game tonight between two teams that are separated by a single point in the standings and would meet in the first round of the playoffs if the season ended today. While he noted that the pace at the NHL level is a step up for sure from the AHL, he’s ready to go to match the moment of the situation.

“Everything goes much quicker [in the NHL], you have to make quicker decisions and you have to be on your toes,” he added. “It’s really exciting. I’ve been up and down so far this year, so these are exciting times.”

Let’s Run It Back, Eh?
Hasn’t been long, has it?

Five days ago, these teams met North of the Border in a hotly contested, battle-filled game in Edmonton. At the end of it all, the shots on goal column for the Kings read 43 but the goals scored column ended where it started – 0.

The Kings competed in Edmonton and the difference in the game was a moment of magic from Connor McDavid and a moment of magic from Leon Draisaitl. The Kings had ample opportunities to score but couldn’t beat Stuart Skinner on that night, the day before he was named the NHL’s Rookie of the Month with a 10-1-1 record during the month of March. The shutout certainly bolstered his candidacy there, but it’s now April. The Kings saw no game on their trip hit the over for gamblers, with five total goals the highest from four games, as they conceded an average of just 1.5 goals against per game. Still, exceeding 40 shots on goal will likely get you on the board more nights than not.

“You’d always want more, but at the end of the night, we looked up and we had [43] shots,” McLellan said. “They’re not all quality shots, I get that, but right now teams are really clamping down and keeping even the shooting opportunities to a minimum. We did do some things right, but there are some things that we can do better.”

All-in-all, McLellan walked away from a hard-fought game with that mindset. Immediately following, he called it a “hell of a game”, emphasizing how hard both teams played, with those moments going the Oilers’ way. He reciprocated some of those thoughts here this morning.

“We had some good looks, we had some individual players that have scored a lot of goals for us this year 1-on-1 with the goaltender, so obviously the need to capitalize on the chances that we do create,” McLellan said. “Defensively, I thought we did some really good things that night, it was a hard-fought game, so was the game in Calgary so was the game in Seattle, so was the game in Vancouver. Going back to what’s good for us right now, it’s those nights.”

There’s no sense in talking this game up as a potential playoff preview because there’s far too much that can happen between now and the end of the regular season. It is a rematch, though, between two teams that played a playoff-style game less than a week prior. Should the game trend in the same direction here in Los Angeles, the Kings wouldn’t be upset, they’d just like to take better advantage of the looks they do get.

Home Cookin’
Lastly, Insiders, the Kings look to keep that home cooking going, as they host Edmonton with a franchise record on the line.

Sharing in full from LA Kings PR – “The Kings enter tonight riding a 13-game home point streak (11-0-2), dating back to Feb. 11 (6-0 W vs. PIT). It is tied for the largest home point streak in franchise history with their previous 13-game home point streak set in the 1992-93 season (12-0-1-0, Oct. 10 – Dec. 8, 1992). Over those 13 games at Crypto.com Arena, the Kings have outscored their opponents 58-28 with a goals-for per game average of 4.46, the second-highest home average in the league during that time (since Feb. 11). Should the Kings collect a point tonight, it would extend their streak to 14 games and set a new franchise record.”

As McLellan has said, it’s about what the streak means, not what the streak is. With one of the NHL’s best in the building, another opportunity to play the right way on home ice in a continued effort to establish momentum heading into the postseason.

Kings and Oilers, tonight at 7:30 PM on the worldwide leader. See you there!