10/14 Preview – Kings To Return To 12/6 Alignment + Spence Season Debut, 48 Hours Of Work

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (0-1-0) vs. Carolina Hurricanes (1-0-0)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Saturday, October 14 @ 7:30 PM Pacific (Coverage Starts @ 6:30)
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings complete a short, two-game homestand to start the season as they host the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings went 0-1-1 against Carolina last season, taking a point in overtime in the most recent meeting in January 2023. Forward Anze Kopitar led the Kings with three points (1-2-3), while forward Adrian Kempe scored twice across the two games. Forward Blake Lizotte has points in each of his last four games against Carolina, spanning the last two seasons.

KINGS VITALS: Expect to see a return to a more traditional alignment for the Kings tonight, after a displaced, 11F / 6D look in the home opener. Today’s morning skate was optional, but here’s how the team lined up yesterday –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Spence
Bjornfot

Copley
Talbot

Look for goaltender Pheonix Copley to make his first start of the season tonight, after Cam Talbot got the nod in Game 1 versus Colorado. Copley made his first career start against Carolina last season, making 25 saves on 30 shots in a 5-4 overtime defeat in Raleigh.

“We were going to play both goalies, one each,” McLellan said. “I said to Talbs that if you have a 60-save shutout, Copper is playing in game two. We have to get everybody going here. We’re playing against arguably two of the top-five teams in the National Hockey League right off the bat, both goalies will be tested, and we need both of them playing all season.”

As far as tonight’s lineup goes, Kings Head Coach Todd McLellan said yesterday that the Kings are expected to go with 12 forwards and six defensemen tonight against Carolina. That points to a season debut for forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan up front and defenseman Jordan Spence on the backend. Tobias Bjornfot was on late this morning, which points to him checking out from the group that played on Wednesday.

HURRICANES VITALS: Carolina enters tonight’s action off of an opening-night win over Ottawa on Wednesday, with today beginning a six-game roadtrip for the Hurricanes.

Goaltender Frederik Andersen was off first this morning in Los Angeles, making him tonight’s projected starting goaltender for Carolina. Anderson has posted a lifetime record of 11-1-3, with a .929 save percentage and a 2.20 goals-against average.

Per Walt Ruff of CarolinaHurricanes.com, here’s how the visitors lined up last time out, featuring an alignment of 11 forwards and seven defensemen –

As promised, all 19 skaters are taking warmup. We'll have to wait for the official card to see who sits, but the feeling is that it will either be Lemieux or Chatfield.

Bunting – Aho – Jarvis
Turbo – KK – Necas
MSF
Lemieux* – Drury – Noesen

Slavin – Burns
Skjei – Pesce
Orlov -… pic.twitter.com/sUl6mnNvX5

— Walt Ruff (@WaltRuff) October 11, 2023

Former Kings forward Brendan Lemieux did not dress on opening night but is an option to skate against his former team this evening, should they dress 12 forwards. Carolina is without forward Andrei Svechnikov, who is returning from knee injury that ended his 2022-23 campaign.

Regardless of personnel, Todd McLellan knows the test the Hurricanes present.

“We have a pretty good idea of how they’re going to play, they’ve played the same way for five years and it’s been very effective,” McLellan said. “They play with a lot of pace, they play in your face and they challenge the puck carrier all over the rink. Where it’s going next, you better be ready, so we’ve been able to watch them play, obviously in their initial game against Ottawa, and then go back and look at what happened last year. The characteristics that we believe they have, still show up, so it’s not going to be a lot different I don’t think, then what it’s been for the last couple of seasons.”

Notes –
Air Jordan
Looks like a season debut for defenseman Jordan Spence. A season debut for, #21, Jordan Spence.

Announced in the flurry of transactions over the last two days was the recall of defenseman Jordan Spence from AHL-Ontario. Also included in that move was Spence’s number changing from #53 to #21, a typical sign that he’s “made the team”. In normal circumstances, that tends to come with when a player cracks the opening-night roster, ala Brandt Clarke last season, which Spence technically didn’t do. By merit, he made the team. By circumstance, he didn’t. The number change was made yesterday, though, with Spence adopting a more permanent number with the Kings.

“I wore 21 in junior years and even with the Reign two years ago and I just liked the number. I decided if I could change it, luckily I was able to, but I’m excited for the number.”

Looking at tonight, Spence should be back in the spot he earned during training camp, the spot that he was expected to be in had things not gone awry. The plan heading into camp, assuming full health, was for the Kings to carry seven defensemen in the early stages of the season. Spence was not a lock for one of those spots, but he earned one through his play. Then, due to suspension and injury issues, the Kings were forced to begin with just six defensemen for Game 1, with Spence’s waiver-exempt status making him a temporary send-down to Ontario.

Now, with added flexibility due to Viktor Arvidsson being placed on long-term injured reserve, Spence is back tonight and is expected to debut against Carolina. It was a strange few days for Spence, hearing things explained to him by Blake. He certainly understood, but he wants to play in the NHL. Now he gets that shot.

“At the end of the day, you want to play at the highest level,” Spence said. “I wanted to play the first game but there’s just the business side of things that had to take over, just with everything. To be honest, I don’t really know much, but for me personally, I thought I had a pretty good camp and the staff, the front office did as well, so I was pretty happy with my performance.”

Spence admitted he was disappointed to not play on Wednesday, but the disappointment was a bit different than in previous times he was loaned to Ontario. Spence knew he had a good camp and with the situation explained as well as it was, it became pretty clear that he would be back sooner rather than later.

Sooner became even sooner than expected, with the Kings now able to expand the roster as a result of LTIR.

From Todd McLellan’s point of view, he’s just looking for Spence to be Spence, to play like he’s been playing. There’s no wild asks of the young blueliner tonight – just keep doing what you’ve been doing.

“Just carry on what he’s been doing from exhibition season, he had a real good exhibition season,” McLellan said this morning. “He moved pucks, he defended well, commanded some authority on the power play, the second unit, being able to move the puck and create with his vision and his shot. He’s had a real good month with us now and all we’re asking him to do is just continue on and grow his game.”

48 Hours Of Work
In between games this week, the Kings opted for an off-ice session on Thursday, followed by a longer practice day yesterday.

Having the two days in between Wednesday’s season opener and tonight’s game naturally helps to get both in, but now that the Kings are in season, with games coming regularly, they know they’ll need to improve both through video and on-ice work in order to sort things out.

“I think at this point in the season, especially post training camp, it’s a lot more video every single year,” forward Blake Lizotte said. “You want to limit your workload on the ice a little bit as the games start to ramp up, so a lot of it just comes through through video.”

Against Colorado on Wednesday, Todd McLellan felt the Kings were second in a lot of areas in the defensive zone, in terms of getting to pucks in the corners and getting to pucks in front of the net.

Lizotte echoed similar things today.

“I think just playing faster in our d-zone, we felt we were a little slow last game,” Lizotte said this morning. “Whether it’s first game or whatever you want to call it, we want to be quicker, we need to be quicker. [Carolina’s] a fast team, they fly around pretty much everywhere on the ice, so I think for us, it’s important to be quick to second pucks, second man into a pile, that’s going to be a focus for us.”

It’s certainly a tough test right off the bat for the Kings, facing what McLellan believes could be two of the NHL’s top-five teams in consecutive games to begin the season.

There are no excuses, though, for a team that’s raised the bar from an expectations standpoint. Competing with teams like Colorado and Carolina is expected, especially at home, and the Kings are working on those specific areas to prepare for the Hurricanes. That’s not to say it was all bad against Colorado though, because it wasn’t. Lots of good things from that game too, even if not enough to get the required result. All touched on by the Kings over the past 48 hours, with hopes of a better outcome here tonight.

“We were able to go and contrast the pros and the cons, the good and the bad, and there was there was good in the game,” McLellan said. “There were some really good situations and then we would watch three or four of them and talk about what we were doing well here and then we flip to three or four more clips, exact same scenario, maybe even the same players, played a lot slower – slower to react slower to close. So, it’s in us, we know what to do, we’ve just got to get it done.”

Strong messaging – get it done.

Kings and Hurricanes, Saturday Night Hockey in DTLA. See you there!