Camp Primer, 10/6 – What a 21-Player Roster Means For The LA Kings

Misery Loves Company.

Todd McLellan can usually turn a phrase in his media availabilities and gave perhaps a different perspective to the roster that the Kings are expecting to carry on opening night. Now, the organization’s preference would naturally be to have a little bit more flexibility with their roster and at least one additional roster spot at their disposal on a day-to-day basis. The prospect of playing without any scratches, or even going a player short on some nights, isn’t ideal, even if McLellan and his staff are aware that it might happen from time to time.

McLellan’s viewpoint comes as the team’s coach. He’s not the individual who submits the season-opening roster to the league, even if he is providing input. From his standpoint, he’s seen the toll being a healthy scratch can entail – it ain’t fun, even for a player who approaches the situation with the best of attitudes. It’s not really a problem the Kings will be facing when full healthy, at least in the early goings of the season.

“It is tougher when you’re limited with the number of roster spots that you can access and we’re in that situation this year, but we’re not the only team,” McLellan said. “Some days it’s not a bad thing to have fewer players as well, misery loves company when it’s not in the lineup and having our farm team right next door is always a good thing. We can access players as we need them, but it is tough on some individuals that are going to be right at that cut line if you will.”

As things currently stand, with one suspension and zero injuries, the Kings may not have a healthy scratch on October 11 who is eligible to play in that game.

Arthur Kaliyev’s two-game regular-season suspension likely means that he will be on the opening-night roster, but unable to play. If it’s a 21-player roster, Kaliyev would occupy that extra spot for the first two games. While suspended, Kaliyev naturally cannot play against Colorado or Carolina, but his contract does count against the NHL’s salary cap. That puts the Kings in a bit of a tricky position when selecting their roster. Assuming all publicly available numbers are correct, we could see either 12 forwards and six defensemen or 11 forwards and seven defensemen for game one. That presents options at both positions. For a forward trying to make the opening night roster, there is now a glimmer of hope that wasn’t there before. On the blueline, configuration might change due to the presence of waivers. We have a few days yet, and one game still to be played, to see how it goes. What we do know is that it most likely won’t be 23 players when the roster is submitted on Monday evening, as the Kings management team has made clear since June.

Rob Blake – We understood coming into this season that a 21 or 22-man roster is the most likely scenario to start the season. One injury can affect all that, and get you back, but we knew we would be in that situation. I think Todd is comfortable operating that way, even if we have to play a man short for a game or two in an emergency situation.

Luc Robitaille – I’m not sure we’ll be able to open with 23, it’s no secret, if you just go look online and you do the math, we might be a man or two short to start and we’re prepared for it. We know if there’s an injury, something could happen for a game, but we all knew we had an opportunity to get a great player in Pierre-Luc Dubois and we went for it.

Blake admitted that he knew that plan meant players on waivers who, ordinarily, the Kings wouldn’t have wanted to place on waivers. That’s just a reality of the situation, though. In this instance, Samuel Fagemo was claimed by Nashville earlier in the week and we will likely see additional players on waivers in the coming days. The Kings went in on Dubois and with the salary cap only rising by a million dollars this summer, a smaller roster was inevitable, as it is for several teams around the NHL. Without in-depthly diving into each situation, CapFriendly currently shows 10 of 32 teams over the salary cap and several of those teams are over with less than a 23-player roster. An additional six teams would be over if carrying 23 players. It’s the cost of doing business for both a largely flat salary cap and with what the Kings wanted to accomplish by acquiring top-end talent.

McLellan also raises a very good point, which is that the Ontario Reign are now based in El Segundo, which makes transactions between the NHL and AHL quite easy, especially early in the season. The Kings don’t have a true road trip until Halloween, when they play in Toronto, so moving players up and down in between games or around games would be pretty seamless. The roster today isn’t necessarily the roster tomorrow. Something to keep in mind.

We’ll breakdown the remaining positional battles in today’s practice report, with a roster still consisting of 25 players who are not injured or suspended. That means there are moves to come, but still one practice and one game to play for the final players on the roster bubble to make a statement towards cementing their place in the NHL or starting the season with the AHL’s Ontario Reign.

For now, here’s how we could expect the Kings to align for this morning’s practice –

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

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

Copley / Rittich / Talbot

Kings are on the ice momentarily at Toyota Sports Performance Center, their final skate before tomorrow’s matinee contest against Vegas. Will update if any changes and follow up with a look at final roster battles later on this afternoon!