10/2 Practice – Week of “Routine” Ahead + Fagemo to NSH, McLellan on Laferriere, LH/RH Balance

Busy Day, Insiders!

First things first, today was the first day of LA Kings training camp, post Sunday roster moves. Todd McLellan said the other day that in an ideal world, he’d be able to work with his group of 27, 28 players from the outset. In some ways, the Kings have had that this season, just with a ton of days in between. Today marks 15 days since training camp opened in Melbourne. In the first 14 days, the Kings veterans had just six practices and one of those six came in a shortened skate on the ice at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. In a normal year, that total number would probably be closer to 10, but it also would have meant several skates intertwined with the players who have played the bulk of the games over the last week.

It’s simply a different year.

“Camp has been different for us, there’s absolutely no doubt about it,” McLellan said this morning. “Everybody is tired of practicing, they want to play games. We’ll see a lot more of what our lineup might look like over these last three games, which I think will be good for us heading into regular season. They’ll play a game, have a day off, play a game, get back into that routine. With practice, we still won’t have near as many guys when it’s all said and done, so the reps are altered a little bit, you may not be going quite as much as you’d like to, so that’s going to get altered, especially with the salary cap situation the way it is. Then, decisions that have to be made will be made as the week goes on.”

As far as today’s group goes, the group was aligned as follows –

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

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

Copley / Rittich / Talbot

Regarding this morning’s news, forward Samuel Fagemo was claimed off of waivers by the Nashville Predators. Fagemo was a second-round selection by the Kings back in 2019 and has played in NHL games with the Kings over the last two seasons, scoring his first career NHL goal last fall against Carolina. He’s been an impact scorer at the AHL level but hasn’t quite cracked the NHL lineup, with the Kings acquiring veteran players to fill Top-9 roster spots. Fagemo was the most likely player to be claimed, of the nine who were waived, and if you look at Nashville’s roster, they’ve lost a ton of forwards over the last few years, including Viktor Arvidsson when he was traded to the Kings back in 2021.

Regarding Fagemo, McLellan emphasized that you never want to lose a player from the organization, but also hopes Fagemo can establish a better NHL opportunity in Nashville than he did with the Kings.

“You never want to lose good players and Sammy is a really good player, but it’s also a sign that the organization has done a pretty good job of building up the talent pool,” McLellan said. “Not everybody can play, 23 is the max that can be on the roster at any given time and there will be quite a few teams that don’t even have that many on the team and therefore some players have to get waived. If you can’t play for the Kings, you deserve an opportunity to play for another NHL team and Sammy is going to get that. We wish him well, he’s been a real good prospect for us and I’m sure he’ll do real well.”

A player who was with the NHL group today, however, was forward Alex Laferriere and you’d find it hard not to compare him and Fagemo when looking at the lineup. A week ago, it was Fagemo in that spot on the “fifth” line, skating with Turcotte and Anderson-Dolan, along with veteran Jacob Doty at the time. Laferriere has shined during training camp, however, and he’s vaulted his way up the depth chart. Fagemo scored the other night in San Jose and had a fine camp, but it’s been Laferriere who has risen from Group B, into an opportunity with the veterans. As noted yesterday, there’s not a ton of wiggle room with this roster, but Laferriere has at the very least worked his way firmly into the discussion.

“He’s a strong skater, when he sees something, he goes and gets it, he gets after it right away, there’s not a lot of pauses in his game,” McLellan said. “I’ve seen him be able to position himself fairly well to get shots off too and he doesn’t always have to use his shot to score, we’ve seen him tip pucks in or go to the paint, so he’s doing a lot of things well. Obviously, he doesn’t have a lot of pro experience, so for these things to be showing up already, it’s pretty promising. We’ll see where this week takes us with him.”

With regards to today’s lineup combinations, there’s not a ton to report in this department.

The Top 12 up front really appear to be solidly in their positions, minus any sort of injuries or last-minute changes. All 12 players are on one-way contracts and all 12 players are experienced in the NHL. The most notable camp battles remaining are on the blue line, where the Kings have a very solidified Top 4, but beyond that, there are four players still here in camp with a legitimate shot at those third pairing roles.

Most would consider the competition to be between two left-shot defensemen – Tobias Bjornfot and Andreas Englund – and two right-shot defensemen – Brandt Clarke and Jordan Spence. Would the Kings consider, though, playing a pair of same-handed defensemen together, whether that be Clarke with Spence or shaking up an established Top 4? McLellan didn’t rule out the general concept, but the Kings like the balance they’ve created at this point in time, with four of each shot.

“We have a few more options than we did in the past,” McLellan said. “The ability to play your off hand, whether you’re a winger or D, is valuable. It’s different for a forward or a d-man, it can be difficult if you haven’t done it, we’ve talked about that with Sean [Durzi] last year, but once he settled in and figured it out, five, six games in and all the practices, I think he was just fine. If we have to get to that this year, we will certainly do it, but we do feel like we have a little more balance with lefties and righties.”

Looking at the schedule to come, as McLellan noted, this feels like a pretty regular NHL week.

The Kings will alternate between practices and games, starting today, running through Saturday. Following Saturday’s game, we will see final roster decisions made, as the Kings will need to have a salary-cap compliant roster submitted by Monday, with the NHL season officially getting underway on Tuesday. Imagine we will see that roster submission somewhere in that window, the Kings likely carrying a group of either 21 or 22 players, assuming full health here over the next three games.

So much more content to come this week, including regular coverage for tomorrow’s game versus Anaheim. A few features between now and opening night as well, with a look at the reunion of the top line to come midweek. Thanks as always for following along. 9 days away, Insiders!