Kings Assign Three To Ontario – Analyzing The Moves + McLellan on Kaliyev, Reports

The LA Kings hit the ice today before their final exhibition contest, in what could be the final practice before final roster decisions are made.

If there was a player looking to state their case as to why they should be on the opening night roster, in a practice setting, today could very well have been their final opportunity to do so. The Kings will not hold a morning skate tomorrow before their 1 PM game against the Vegas Golden Knights and final rosters are due to the NHL on Monday. The Kings could still have Monday’s practice, but the roster will likely be finalized based on impressions from games yesterday and tomorrow, along with today’s practice.

Entering today, the training camp roster consisted of 28 players, 26 of whom are healthy and 25 who could factor in to play on opening night. A reminder that forward Arthur Kaliyev is suspended for tomorrow’s preseason finale, as well as the first two games of the regular season. Kaliyev is waiver exempt and in theory could be assigned to the AHL, but his suspension would not activate in that instance. Kaliyev is likely to count against the NHL roster limit and more importantly against the NHL salary cap, which adds a wrinkle into roster preparations the Kings did not expect. It’s a costly outcome for a few reasons, and we’ll break down below how it could potentially impact the roster that takes on Colorado in Game 1. It won’t, however, impact Kaliyev’s longer-term standing within the lineup, as Todd McLellan shared this morning.

“He’s not going to lose his spot,” McLellan said. “Last year when he went down with the foot injury, it started out as a short term injury and turned out to be quite a long-term injury and the fact that he didn’t get a lot of skating in and the overall ability to carry that big body around diminished a little bit. That’s unfortunate circumstances where he lost his job, but this suspension won’t prevent him from working and working really hard and maintaining his ability to skate and be involved in practices. He’s had a very good training camp and we expect that to continue on when he returns to the lineup in Winnipeg.”

For today, here’s how the Kings aligned during practice –

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

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

Copley / Rittich / Talbot

After today’s practice, the Kings announced that three of the players who skated with the group today have been assigned to AHL-Ontario. Defenseman Brandt Clarke, along with forwards Alex Laferriere and Alex Turcotte have been loaned to the Reign, effective this afternoon. Therefore, we shouldn’t expect to see any of those three players in action tomorrow afternoon against the Vegas Golden Knights.

“When you’re reassigned, you still have an opportunity to come back and leave your mark and you have a real good career in front of you,” McLellan said. “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.”

All three players stood out during training camp in their own way and all three drew praise at times from the coaching staff, whether that be McLellan or Ontario Reign Head Coach Marco Sturm, who coached the group last week. The Kings had to make roster moves to get down to what we will expect to be a group of 21 players on the roster against Colorado on opening night. These three players are waiver exempt and in that sense, it makes them the easier players to send to the Reign at this time. It’s not to say they might not return later on, but these are three younger players with different things to get out of an AHL loan. It’s not forever and there would be hope to see all three back up with the Kings at some point this season. The Reign are located across the hall and should a need arise, or a personnel decision be determined to be needed, these are three players who have left positive impressions on the group and will be top of mind when reinforcements from Ontario are needed.

While the Kaliyev suspension alters how the Kings will ultimately compose their opening-night roster, these moves were likely coming either way. A light opened for Laferriere and Turcotte when Kaliyev’s suspension ultimately happened, as a forward spot did open up, but the Kings now have 13 forwards left on their roster, including Kaliyev, meaning 12 who could play on opening night. Admittedly, I thought Laferriere did about everything he could during camp, but that just goes to show how difficult of a roster this is to crack. We’ll see further adjustments made once Kaliyev is cleared to return for Game 3 and we’ll see if either of the Alexes are included. For Turcotte, were it a different roster spot that opened up, it might be him we’d be thinking more about. He had a strong camp and it’s clear he’s grown his game over the summer. A strong run of AHL games, consecutively, while making an impact is probably the best thing for him right now. Here’s to hoping that what he can do.

For Clarke, he went back and forth with defenseman Jordan Spence throughout training camp on the right side. With two additional moves still to come and Spence also being waiver-exempt, it’s not a lock for Spence, but a good sign towards the player who has two additional seasons of professional experience. Clarke has just 14 professional games under his belt between the NHL and the AHL. He’s a heck of a talent and being a top dog with Ontario will only benefit him in the long run. It’s often viewed as an external failure when a first-round pick is assigned to the AHL at 20-years-old. That couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a long, long process and Clarke will be an impact player in due time. Learning and developing on the top pairing with Ontario is a part of the process for so many young blueliners.

These transactions leave the Kings with 25 players on their training camp roster (15 forwards, seven defensemen and three goaltenders). 23 of those players are healthy and the Kings still need to make two additional transactions to get down to the expected number of 21 players on the roster submitted to the NHL by Monday’s deadline. One preseason game to go and we’ll likely find out who those two players are over the weekend.

McLellan on Reports
Additionally, Insiders, sharing a comment from Kings Head Coach Todd McLellan this morning, regarding reports last night concerning a possible contract extension. McLellan’s answer is below –

“I didn’t see it, I obviously heard about it and that’s something that isn’t a Todd thing, that’s a staff thing. We’re in it as a group and Blakey and the staff have all met, a long, long time ago, and we’re just focusing on this year.”

The Kings are set to take the ice tomorrow at Crypto.com Arena in the preseason finale against the Vegas Golden Knights. Puck drop is slated for 1 PM, full preview to follow in the morning!