Breaking down the 2023-24 LA Kings schedule!

Heading into NHL Draft, we’ve got a schedule, Insiders! After yesterday’s miscommunication, I am almost certain that this is the information you hoped to receive clarity on today.

The NHL has announced the 2023 league schedule. You know it’s 82 games, you know it’s got 31 opponents, but we’ve got the rest of the details that you may or may not be clamoring for. How many Sundays will you spend with the game on one screen and the comment section on another, when will the Kings play on Eastern time, when will the defending champions visit Los Angeles……all available below!

The 2023-24 schedule carries an identical structure and format to the season prior, though the opponents in the Western Conference break down a bit differently. Starting with the Pacific Division, the Kings will face five teams four times – twice at home and twice away – while they’ll square off with two opponents three times. The Kings will host the defending champions, the Vegas Golden Knights, just one time, with that matchup falling on October 28, in addition to twice on the road. They’ll visit the Seattle Kraken only one time, with two games between the teams in Los Angeles.

The first playoff rematch between the Kings and Oilers will come at home on December 30, with the first trip to Edmonton falling on February 26. The Freeway Faceoff returns for four contests this season, with the teams squaring off in Los Angeles on February 24 & April 13 and in Anaheim on November 24 & April 9. The Kings will also square off with Calgary, San Jose and Vancouver twice at home and twice on the road.

Moving onto the Central Division, the Kings will play Chicago, Colorado, Minnesota and Nashville twice at home and once on the road, while they’ll play Arizona, Dallas, St. Louis and Winnipeg once at Crypto.com Arena and twice on the road. Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avalanche will begin the season schedule on October 11 with the home and regular-season opener. The Kings will visit the ever-lovely Mullet Arena (capacity 4,600) in Tempe on October 27 and November 20. At the request of the traveling party, trips to Winnipeg this season have been scheduled for October and April, as opposed to January or February.

As has been the case over the last two seasons, the Kings will face all 16 Eastern Conference opponents once at home and once on the road. The defending Eastern Conference Champions, the Florida Panthers, visit Los Angeles on November 16. The defending regular-season champions, the Boston Bruins, come to town for an early-season visit on October 21. Other highlights against Eastern Conference opposition include Montreal on the Saturday after Thanksgiving (November 25) as well as Toronto in the first game of 2023 (January 2) and Buffalo in the final home game before the All-Star Break (January 24).

Days Breakdown
– If you like coming to Crypto.com Arena on a Saturday night, this schedule will be very exciting for you! The Kings will play 15 home games on Saturdays, by far the most of any day of the week. Between home and away games, the Kings will play 22 games this season on Saturdays, the most of any of the seven days of the week.
– Now, if you like watching the LA Kings on the road on days of the week that start with “T”, this schedule will be very exciting for you. The Kings play 18 games away from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, comprising nearly half of the road schedule. Where exactly you will watch these games, well that remains to be seen, but once that comes into fruition, lots of T-based days spent watching the Kings are in our collective futures.
– For whatever reason, the Kings will have the majority of Fridays and Sundays off all season long. Last season, the Kings played just six games apiece on those days, just two at home. The Kings have zero Friday home games for the second consecutive season and will play just two Sundays at home. For NFL fans, there are just four total Sunday games between Opening Night and the Super Bowl.
– The overall breakdown is also kind of interesting from last season to this season. A season ago, the schedule had three days of the week when the Kings played 19 or more games and four days of the week when the Kings played eight or fewer games. This season, five of seven days fall between eight and 19 games played. Thems the breakdowns.

Month Breakdown
– I think I wrote here that last season’s schedule was extremely balanced. Then, I lived that schedule and that schedule was extremely (EXTREMELY) front loaded. The Kings were 5+ games ahead of countless teams for months, with an aggressively heavy schedule in the early goings, both in terms of number of games played and amount of travel. This season does feel more balanced, between 11 and 15 games in every month between November and March, with nine games apiece in October and April.
– The early part of the season is also evenly balanced between home and away. The Kings will play 17 home games and 16 away games from October through December. January and February are road-heavy (+6) and March and April are home-heavy (+5). Last season, the Kings schedule had four more road games and seven more games in total during the October – December stretch. A bit more balance here in 2023-24.
– As it was last season, and likely will be for the foreseeable future, the Kings will have their longest break of the season during the month of February. From February 1 through February 9, the Kings will be off from games, as a part of the league’s annual All-Star break, with those nine days the longest break of the season. Once again this season, it appears to coincide with the team’s bye week. They’ll play just one game in 12 days with a pair of days off after they return to play against Edmonton. From that point on, it’s 10 games from 17 days to close out the month.

Odds & Ends –
– Last season, the Kings had two, six-game road trips as their longest stretches of the season. This season, that number is cut in half, with just one six-game trip in January, from 1/7 through 1/16. The six-game swing contains five games against teams from the Eastern Conference, before finishing up in Dallas. No other trip is longer than four games this season, a pretty stark different in travel from a season ago, which had four trips of 5+ games.
– For all of the early-season travel last year, March leveled the playing field with 10 home games, including a seven-game homestand. The longest homestand this season is five games and it happens just once, from March 2 through March 11. March is still the month with the most home games currently on the calendar, with a five-game homestand and eight total games, compared to six on the road……hits a little differently than the long, long, LONG time spent at home a season ago. The Kings have three, four-game homestands throughout the season in addition to the five-game stretch in March.
– The Kings have 12 back-to-back sets this season, which falls in between where the last two years landed. Last season was just 11, 2021-22 had 16. There’s a give and take there, because a back-to-back is challenging to perform in, but it also coincides with a day off for the team. Not having back-to-back eliminates rest days and recovery days, as the games are further apart. The Kings have ranked in the NHL’s Top 10 in each of the last two seasons in points on the second-half of back-to-backs, averaging 1.33 points-per-game with zero days rest. The only team to rank higher than LA in both seasons is the Colorado Avalanche. Not too shabby.
– Of the back-to-backs, typically the bulk are between two cities on the road, but this season’s schedule has a lot more variety. In the first three months of the season, the Kings will play four away/home back-to-backs, starting in October with an Arizona trip, followed by a home game against Vegas. November has a pair of those situations, first with a Vegas/Home set, then an Anaheim game before a home game in November. Lastly, the Kings will have a San Jose to LA trip in December. March has a home/home back-to-back, with games against Chicago and Minnesota coming on home ice on consecutive nights. The Kings also have a pair of home/road back-to-backs, one in December and one in April. The first comes right out of the holiday break, with a trip to Vegas immediately after a home game versus the Sharks. The latter has a trip to San Jose preceded by a home game against Seattle the night before.
– The schedule as it stands right now does feature a few more matinee games than a season ago, but still a somewhat low number. The Kings currently have six games that are scheduled to start at or before 3 PM local time. Just two of these games are at home – November 25 versus Montreal and February 3 versus New Jersey. The other four are on the road (11/24 @ ANA, 1/7 @ WSH, 1/15 @ CAR, 1/28 @ STL). There are also a pair of 5 PM starts, local time, on the calendar. The Kings will host Colorado at 5 PM on December 3 and visit Boston at 5 PM on February 17. The bulk of the starts will be at either 7 PM or 7:30 PM local time, as is typically the case, but there’s always the possibility of times changing for TV broadcasts, which will come further down the road.
– Unless playing an away game in Winnipeg is just an April Fools Joke, the Kings will once again be in action on several holidays this season, including April 1 in Manitoba. The Kings will also be North of the border on Halloween, spending the day in Toronto against the Maple Leafs. The Kings will be in Anaheim for Black Friday on November 24, dodging the Thanksgiving-eve flight from last year, while the early start in Carolina falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
– As noted in the section above, February is the strange month on the schedule, due to NHL All-Star Weekend. All-Star Weekend will be held in Toronto this season, taking place on February 2 and 3 at the home of the Maple Leafs. The Kings once again finish their pre-break schedule on the East Coast in Nashville, placing whoever will be representing the team a bit closer to their All-Star destination. Kevin Fiala’s flight last season from Raleigh to Fort Lauderdale was a bit nicer than Los Angeles to the Florida, cross-country venture would have been.

Additionally, the Kings have released the following information regarding single-game tickets for regular-season games.

Ticket information:
– Season Ticket Members can access discounted pre-sale tickets beginning July 6 in their Fan Account at lakings.com/myaccount.
– Individual Ticket pre-sales will begin July 10, with an American Express Card holder pre-sale.
– LA Kings eNews subscribers and other select fan groups will receive pre-sale opportunities on July 12.
– Tickets will go onsale to the general public on July 13.
– Season Ticket Memberships are on sale now.
– Full Promotional schedule including theme nights and giveaways to be announced soon.

And, exhale. Your way too much, over the top, breakdown of the 2023-24 schedule with a heck of a lot of information you didn’t want to know. Anything I didn’t include that you’d like to see? Drop your information in the comments and I can hopefully answer it from there. Otherwise, start planning your road trips, send along suggestions for LA Kings Insider Suite Night and enjoy the roadmap for our lives from October through April.