Practice Report 10/16 – Kaliyev skates with Danault/Moore + “The Return” To Winnipeg

Happy Monday, Insiders!

A good skate today for the LA Kings before they hit the road, off to Winnipeg to begin the first trip of the season.

A few notes from today’s skate –

– The Kings welcomed forward Arthur Kaliyev back into the group as a non-suspended player. Kaliyev served four games – two exhibition and two regular season – as a result of a hit on Anaheim forward Chase De Leo during the preseason. Kaliyev was out of the lineup against Colorado and Carolina and appears set to return tomorrow against Winnipeg.

When the suspension originally happened, Todd McLellan said that Kaliyev would not lose his spot due to suspension, and although his spot changed, it wasn’t lost.

The @LAKings are on the ice for practice today before leaving for Winnipeg.

Arthur Kaliyev is free from suspension and looks to be lined up with Trevor Moore and Phillip Danault, leaving the 22/80/78 line together.

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) October 16, 2023

Today, Kaliyev skated today alongside Phillip Danault and Trevor Moore. In the 2021-22 season, when Viktor Arvidsson was out for a month or so due to injury, Kaliyev was one of the players who got a look in that spot down the stretch. Today, the Kings returned to that look during practice, which keeps things with a Top-9 approach up front.

I think you could make the case either way of what would work better, regarding Kaliyev and Laferriere, between the Dubois and Danault lines. The Kings can also make adjustments on the go, if they want to swap those players around, or make additional moves amongst the forwards that would impact more than two lines. Typically, the Kings like to keep pairs of players together and move around a third piece as needed. This fits within what has historically been done.

During the 2021-22 season, Kaliyev played six games with Moore and Danault, with promising results. The line controlled more than 67 percent of shot attempts and were over 65 percent of scoring chances and just shy of 60 percent of high-danger chances. Together, at 5-on-5, they scored three goals compared to two allowed. They outchanced their opposition in five of the six games and – it isn’t exactly top of mind – but I recall a pretty solid showing from those three together.

Assuming all goes according to plan here over the next 24 hours, we could expect to see those players together in Winnipeg tomorrow night.

– Additionally, we saw a lot of work this morning on the power play during today’s practice.

The Kings scored twice on the power play against Carolina on Saturday – with each unit burying once – but there were also two shorthanded goals against in that game.

The biggest issues against the Hurricanes came from zone entries. On three occasions, the Kings turned the puck over at or approaching the offensive blue line, leading to a pair of breakaways and a 2-on-1 the other way. Two of those three situations wound up in the back of their net. Kevin Fiala, who was involved in all three of those plays, was still in his usual spot on the power play and was a facilitator during today’s drills, setting up a few nice goals for the his unit. A blip on the radar is the hope, for a problem that was not present very often last season.

– A look ahead has the team currently in the sky, heading towards Winnipeg to begin the first trip of the season. The Kings will have morning skates on the road tomorrow in Manitoba and Thursday in Minnesota, sandwiched around a practice day on Wednesday.

The Kings have several “homecomings” in those games, if you will, beginning with Winnipeg……more on that below!

The Return.

Pierre-Luc Dubois is a huge fan of The Office, so it only makes sense to reference that show when discussing his return to Winnipeg, in what will be his first game back after being traded to the Kings this summer. The return referred to Oscar, but it certainly feels like he’ll be received more like Toby.

Kind of funny how that scheduling works out, isn’t it?

Last season, after the Kings acquired forward Kevin Fiala from Minnesota, where did the Kings open their road schedule for the season? You guessed it. Now, the first game of the year away from Los Angeles? Winnipeg, Manitoba, setting up Dubois against his former team and the trio of Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari and Gabe Vilardi, who will play against the Kings for the first time as NHL players.

For tomorrow, Dubois expects to hear it from the Winnipeg crowd. Such is life after requesting a trade as a professional athlete. Murat Ates with The Athletic published a story this morning on Dubois and his reasons for ultimately asking out of Winnipeg and signing an eight-year contract with the Kings. In rational terms, it doesn’t need to be a dislike of one in order to want or like another. Dubois made it clear in that interview that it wasn’t a matter of anything against Winnipeg, but a decision made when he had the opportunity to control his own long-term situation. Worth a read, linked HERE.

We also had the chance to chat with Dubois in a more extended setting, which dropped today as a podcast on the All The Kings Men channel, embedded for a listen above.

He joked that those noises you’ll hearing tomorrow night, the ones ending in “oooooooooo”, are actually an affectionate ‘Duuuuuuuuuuub” from the Winnipeg fans. He understands the situation he’s going into, which is different than the one Fiala walked into in Minnesota last season. Fiala was more a victim of a salary-cap crunch in the moment of the trade, where as Dubois still had a year left before unrestricted free agency. He was an unsigned RFA this summer, opting to openly talk about his situation with Winnipeg instead of committing for one more season before having the option to leave for nothing as a UFA.

Dubois will likely receive the Fiala treatment in the morning, though.

He’ll be crowded by media after morning skate and he’ll be a focal point of the attention throughout the day. Unlike Fiala, he’ll be drawn to comparisons of the players on the other side, with Iafallo, Kupari and Vilardi all expected to be in the lineup for the Jets. He’s certainly hoping for a productive day to the level that Fiala had, as he picked up three points in a Kings victory against the Wild a season ago.

Expecting to hear from Dubois in the morning, as well as a few others, before the Kings take on Winnipeg later in the evening. The Kings will have the return of Kaliyev, the storyline of facing former teammates and, more importantly than all of that, a need to cut down on the goals against, after allowing 11 in the first two games. Full game preview to follow here in the morning, and happy to answer questions in the comments today throughout the course of this plane ride!