Camp Primer, 10/4 – Today’s Alignment + GavRoykov Picking Up Where They Left Off

Happy Wednesday, Insiders!

Feels like a regular week, doesn’t it?

The Kings practiced on Monday. They played yesterday at home. They practice today. They travel to Utah and play tomorrow. They practice on Friday. They play at home on Saturday afternoon against Vegas.

Status quo here for what we can expect to see during the regular season.

As far as today’s practice, here’s what we can expect as the Kings are set to take the ice for today’s practice –

Quinton Byfield – Anze Kopitar – Adrian Kempe
Trevor Moore – Phillip Danault – Viktor Arvidsson
Kevin Fiala – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Arthur Kaliyev
Carl Grundstrom – Blake Lizotte – Trevor Lewis
Jaret Anderson-Dolan – Alex Turcotte – Alex Laferriere

Mikey Anderson – Drew Doughty
Vladislav Gavrikov – Matt Roy
Andreas Englund – Jordan Spence
Tobias Bjornfot – Brandt Clarke

Pheonix Copley / David Rittich / Cam Talbot

Last night’s game against Anaheim told us some things, in a variety of different ways, with the final score of 4-1 being among the least important. The lineup the Ducks iced was one that had a solid group of NHL’ers, but was also missing 4-5 forwards from what their roster on opening night will look like, as well as a couple of defensemen. Still, a stat line that shows a distribution of shot attempts on Natural Stat Trick of 74 – 18 is a disparity worth mentioning.

I came in this morning wondering if we talk about the the second forward line, or the second defensive pairing. The Moore – Danault – Arvidsson line posted a line of 17 shot attempts for, compared to just one against. 9-1 in scoring chances, 4-0 in high-danger chances. A prototypical nice line kind of night. For today, however, we’ll focus on the second defensive pairing.

For whatever ridiculous line combinations you want to use, can we please just agree that GavROYkov will be a pair on October 11?

Like, it was 33-3. pic.twitter.com/2ecBAqapKJ

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) October 4, 2023

A lot of folks wanted to see that pairing broken up, likely to support a team that included more balance to accommodate both Brandt Clarke and Jordan Spence in the lineup, but not playing together. From the start though, we’ve expressed here that is extremely unlikely, at least to start the season. The Kings locked up Vladislav Gavrikov to play on the second defensive pairing, alongside Matt Roy, with the intention of creating a top four on the blueline they feel can match up with most around the NHL. The pairing fit so well last season, as Gavrikov slotted in well almost from the get-go. An important re-signing, to play a specific role.

“We’re certainly excited about getting him signed and keeping him here,” McLellan said of Gavrikov. “We feel that our Top 4 can match up with anyone’s top four and he’s a big part of that. Having the left-hander there, we talked about him having the sneaky offensive side last year, but he didn’t have that at the expense of what we brought him here for, which was to play a heavy, hard game and to check. He fits our locker room very well too and I think if you took a survey of everybody here, they’d all be very excited about having him here.”

From the time Gavrikov and Roy started as a pairing back in March, they’ve been one of the NHL’s best from a puck possession perspective. Last night’s stats in a vacuum are meaningless. When they’re building off of what we saw last season though, it’s a continuation of a story, even in a preseason setting. Among defensive pairs last season with at least 200 minutes together at 5-on-5 in the 2022-23 regular season, just one pair around the league ranked higher than Gavrikov/Roy in percentage of goals controlled. When on the ice together, the duo ranked inside the NHL’s Top 5 in both percentage of high-danger chances (third) and scoring chances (fifth) controlled. It was a solid base a season ago and with two exhibition games under their belt here in the 2023 preseason, it’s clear the chemistry has continued.

Neither player had a secret sauce to why the pairing worked as well as it has. While Gavrikov was ultimately acquired specifically to play with Roy – at least as a first option – I don’t think anybody could have imagined it would have fit as well as it did. Hard to argue with results, though.

Gavrikov – Right now, we have a great [group of defensemen], it’s not going to be a problem. With Royzie, we just started playing together, pretty from the time I got here. We tried to learn as quickly as we can and he really helped me out a lot.

Roy – The familiarity going into the season with our d-core, I think it’s going to be really strong this year. I think [Gavrikov and I] play a similar game and I think we have similar mindsets. Just that fact alone, I think we just meshed with each other well and he’s so easy to work with.

Having the established top four in place has shifted the focus to the roster battles on the third defensive pairing. There are currently four defensemen on the roster, looking to compete for two spots in the opening-night lineup and perhaps a third spot as a healthy scratch. The Kings are in a position to really push a battle there, because of how well the top four has solidified itself.

Kings are on the ice now in El Segundo, with a full daily recap to follow!