Kings recall Spence, Laferriere, Anderson-Dolan, Kaliyev + 2 Assigned to ONT

Happy Friday, Insiders!

The Kings have recalled defenseman Jordan Spence, as well as forwards Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Alex Laferriere and Arthur Kaliyev from the Ontario Reign this morning, with the quartet expected to join the main group for practice this morning. Additionally, the Kings have assigned forward Alex Turcotte and defenseman Brandt Clarke to the AHL club, in advance of their opening night against San Diego later on this evening.

Long story short, the Kings made a series of transactions yesterday to maximize their salary-cap situation, when they placed forward Viktor Arvidsson on LTIR. As Cap Friendly detailed below, the particular transactions made (Kaliyev, Laferriere down / Clarke, Turcotte up) were made to maximize the performance bonus pool available to the Kings.

Before placing Arvidsson on LTIR, the #LAKings first assigned Kaliyev and Laferriere, and then recalled Turcotte and Clarke.

This gave them a slightly lower ACSL, but with Turcotte and Clarke on the roster prior to their capture, the club incorporates an additional $2.258M into…

— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) October 12, 2023

Now, the Kings are in LTIR, and their situation is set as long as Arvidsson remains out of the lineup, which will be at minimum through the end of the month. With the additional room now established, the Kings can field a full lineup, with an alignment of their choosing. With today’s transactions, the Kings have 13 forwards, seven defensemen and two goaltenders at their disposal for today’s practice. Heading into tomorrow’s game, the forward number shrinks from 13 to 12, as Kaliyev will serve the final game of his suspension on Saturday, before the Kings will be freed up to operate with full personnel – sans Arvidsson – moving forward.

As noted yesterday, while the flexibility element is nice, this isn’t the preferred situation. The preferred situation is a lineup that contains Viktor Arvidsson, who is a skilled and impactful forward. That’s not the situation they’ll be in for the foreseeable future, so they’ll have to make due without him. It presents an opportunity for younger forwards, specifically Alex Laferriere and Arthur Kaliyev in the interim, to step up into that role.

We can expect the team to line up today more in the manner in which they would have under normal circumstances at the start of the season. The Kings planned to use an alignment of 12 forwards, seven defensemen and two goaltenders coming out of camp, but the suspension to Kaliyev and the injury to Arvidsson, combined with the already present salary-cap situation, forced them in a different direction. With today’s moves, the Kings will have the option of returning to their preferred alignment of 12 forwards and six defensemen during the game. Naturally, still 24 hours between now and tomorrow’s game against Carolina, but we could see something similar to the below when the team hits the ice this morning.

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Bjornfot – Spence

Copley / Talbot

I think we can expect to see Spence in the lineup, skating on the third pairing and on PP2, against the Hurricanes tomorrow for his season debut. Spence likely would have been in the lineup on Wednesday had it not been for the aforementioned sequence of events and the Kings rolled with a group that minimized the number of players who were placed on waivers. Now, with LTIR space activated, the Kings are able to bring Spence back up and into the envisioned role.

The Kings were forthcoming with Spence about his situation. Rob Blake talked with Spence about his performance during camp and how were it under different circumstances, he’d have been with the big club during Game 1. How it shook out, that wasn’t feasible, but it was made clear to Spence that it was not performance related, and that he would be back soon. He knew that his time would come soon and he took the news in stride.

When Spence hits the ice today, we will see one change though – Spence will wear #21. Spence has skated in #53 throughout his time with the Kings to date, which was his originally assigned prospect number. Spence has worn #21 in Ontario over the last two seasons and will now get his choice of number up with the Kings as well. An issue of procedure only for us today and we can expect to see Spence on the ice with the NHL club later on today.