9/28 Practice – Today’s Alignment + First Day Back, First Penalty Kill Practice

Back at it, baby.

The group from Australia hit the ice earlier today for their first practice back in the States. The Australia squad was one of two groups to practice today, with Group B consisting mainly of the players who have played in the first two exhibition games against Anaheim and Vegas, as well as the Rookie Faceoff.

Group A today consisted mostly of the players who were in Australia, minus two changes. Defenseman Matt Roy did not practice today, due to illness. Roy’s absence is not expected to be longer term, per Todd McLellan, and we can likely expect him back in the coming days.

“He came back, not feeling real good on the plane, and has continued that,” McLellan said of Roy this morning. “Hopefully he’ll be better tomorrow and he can come out and skate.”

Taking Roy’s spot today in line rushes was rookie blueliner Brandt Clarke, the only player not in Australia who was with Group A today. Clarke’s inclusion is not surprising, regardless of Roy’s status. Clarke was originally supposed to be on the Australia roster, but missed out only due to injury. He said yesterday that he expected to be back with Group A today and, alas, he was as such today.

Group A Line Rushes below, for reference –

Byfield – Kopitar – Kempe
Moore – Danault – Arvidsson
Fiala – Dubois – Kaliyev
Grundstrom – Lizotte – Lewis
Anderson-Dolan – Turcotte – Fagemo – Doty

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Clarke
Englund – Spence
Bjornfot – Moverare

Copley / Rittich / Talbot

Today’s practice was the fourth practice of training camp for Group A. In some ways, though, it felt like the first. It was the first for this group here at Toyota Sports Performance Center. It was also the first in six days, the first in eight days on suitable ice. In terms of a practice plan though, the Kings weren’t treating this as a Day 1 skate, nor did it feel like a first day.

“First opportunity to skate at our home rink and we’re a week or nine days into camp, that’s really odd, but felt like home, it felt good,” McLellan said. “I heard everything from ‘boy do I ever feel good to man this feels awful.’ So, we’ve got a wide range of 27, 28 guys and they know their bodies, they know what they need. I thought they worked real hard work and worked through it. I believe we got better in some areas of the game that we wanted to focus on and tomorrow we’ll get another opportunity.”

In speaking with a few of the guy within the room, there was a wide-range of answers that really coincided with what McLellan said. For Anze Kopitar, he felt more like he did on Day 1, noting that he had even an extra day of rest in not playing the second game in Australia. It takes a bit to get fully up to speed there. Adrian Kempe probably fell a bit more in the middle, while Drew Doughty said he felt great today, indicating it definitely felt like he had been practicing before today’s skate.

Kopitar – Closer to day one than day four, especially after we did quite a bit of flying and a few days off, which were very helpful to get somewhat adjusted but at the same time I didn’t play on Sunday, so that was an extra day off and it’s not the easiest thing to get going after three or four days off. I’m sure everybody felt that way, we skated a little bit yesterday but being on the ice with coaches or without coaches, it’s quite a big difference.

Kempe – In terms of what we did out there, it felt like we’ve been out there for a while. With the flight, trying to get back on it with the legs and everything but, I think it felt alright. It definitely didn’t feel like the first day, I had a couple of days off, so I didn’t feel perfect, but it felt good enough.

Doughty – It feels like we’ve been in camp. It was a little weird, we had a couple of days off, but we bunch of us voluntarily skated yesterday, so it feels like just advancing in camp, it doesn’t feel like the first day.

There was a ton of pace early, working on full-ice flow as well as breakouts and line work. There was also a good portion of practice spent working on the penalty kill, the first time the Kings have dove into special teams so far in the preseason.

“A little bit, it was walkthrough, it was change, it was slow enough to answer questions, fast enough to add intensity to it at the end,” McLellan said. “It was just one small part of our game, so we’re not overloading them.”

By his own admission, McLellan said that the two games played in Melbourne were done without any formal work on special teams. Players were put into positions the Kings envisioned them in during those games, but it was done so with no on-ice work put in to that point. It’s not first two days of camp stuff. That changed today. The penalty kill is a substantial focus for the Kings heading into the 2023-24 season, with McLellan noting that a lot of work was put in throughout the offseason with analyzing that group.

“The PK obviously wasn’t even close to as good as we want it, so we’re putting a big focus on improving that, making some tweaks,” Doughty said. “It was a good day to get it all sorted out and then tomorrow maybe we’ll get some live action actually playing it.

A step forward today, with several steps more to come.

Today’s practice saw the Kings implement some changes as far as the details and the system, in Kopitar’s words. Not changes in terms of what you might expect at 5-on-5, but changes when down a man. The Kings issues on the penalty kill were evident last season and it’s not an overnight fix. Kopitar spoke about the power play from 2021-22 to 2022-23, how it improved immensely, but took some time and a lot of hard work to get to that point. That’s where we’re at right now with the kill. It’ll take some time, and this is just day one, but it’s a big focal point right now.

“Some tweaks on the PK, that I’m sure you guys will pick up on it,” Kopitar said. “Just some details, I guess some system changes, nothing really so much 5-on-5, but PK would probably be the most different since last year. We have a little bit of time now to get that in our brain and once the season starts, so we’re good to go.”

Looking ahead, the Kings have games over the next two days, meaning we’ll see three groups on the ice. A game group, Group A and Group B, both non-game groups. Should be the bulk of the NHL veterans with Group A and those who are not playing tonight, who were with Group B, skating with Group B.