12/30 Preview – Closing Down 2023 + Full-Team Skate, Fourth-Line Fury, Special Teams Status,

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (20-8-4) vs. Edmonton Oilers (16-15-1)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Saturday, December 30 @ 7:00 PM Pacific
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 conclude the 2023 calendar year this evening, as they host the Edmonton Oilers in the first playoff rematch of the season.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Among those expected to play tonight, forwards Trevor Moore (3-1-4) and Kevin Fiala (2-2-4) led the Kings in scoring against the Oilers during the 2022-23 regular season. Forward Adrian Kempe buried five goals and eight points during the 2023 postseason, leading all LA skaters.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held a full-team morning skate today, coming off a full team off day yesterday.

Goaltender Cam Talbot was off first this morning and is expected to get the start this evening versus his former club. Talbot has faced Edmonton just six times throughout his career, tied for the third fewest against any opponent, and has posted a record of 4-1-0, with a .949 save percentage and a 1.72 goals-against average.

Line rushes this morning, shown below, do not suggest any changes from how the team aligned against Vegas on Thursday –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Spence

Talbot
Rittich

Should the Kings make any lineup changes, defenseman Tobias Bjornfot and forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan were on late after today’s morning skate. Defenseman Jacob Moverare was assigned to the AHL’s Ontario Reign earlier in the week and is with Ontario tonight, as they visit Henderson.

OILERS VITALS: Edmonton carries a three-game winning streak into tonight’s action, extended with a 5-0 victory over San Jose in their first game out of the break on Thursday.

No word yet, but we’ll assume Stuart Skinner will get the start tonight for the visitors coming off a shutout last time out, his third straight nod between the pipes. Skinner has a lifetime record of 2-1-0 against the Kings during the regular season, with a .950 save percentage and a 1.78 goals-against average from four appearances.

Per Tony Brar of Oilers TV, here’s how the visitors lined up last time out versus the Sharks –

Oilers lines & pairings in San Jose:

RNH – McDavid – Hyman
McLeod – Draisaitl – Foegele
Kane – Ryan – Janmark
Erne – Hamblin – Brown
Holloway

Nurse – Ceci
Ekholm – Bouchard
Kulak – Desharnais
Gleason

Skinner
Pickard#Oilers

— Tony Brar (@TonyBrarOTV) December 28, 2023

Brar noted today that forward Raphael Lavoie will play tonight on the fourth line, up with the Oilers on an emergency recall from AHL-Bakersfield. Since beginning the month of November, Edmonton has traded losing streaks and winning streaks of three-plus games, with three of each in that timespan. Zach Hyman’s eight goals during the month of December are tied for sixth in the NHL, while Connor McDavid’s 12 assists are tied for fifth.

Notes –
Fourth-Line Fury
Coming out of the holiday break, it’s been back to business as usual for the line of Carl Grundstrom, Blake Lizotte and Trevor Lewis.

A 26-15 advantage in shot attempts and a 13-7 mark in scoring chances, combined over the two games against San Jose and Vegas. They scored a goal against the Sharks, with Lewis cashing in, and were not on the ice for a goal either way versus the Golden Knights, though they turned in an energetic and consistent performance in that game.

“I think our energy level was there the last two games,” Lizotte said. “I was obviously injured for a little while and Carl was playing with [Dubois’] line, so I think we’re kind of getting that mesh back together, starting to mesh again, so it’s been nice to kind of see that come back a little bit. I think just keep playing the same way and hope we get rewarded.”

For a while, those three names were the first written down on the line chart. They were good together, they complemented each other’s skillsets, they shared a mindset which created an identity. Even if there was any sort of movement elsewhere in the lineup, that line remained together. Then Lizotte got hurt, missing six games, while Grundstrom moved to another line, remaining there in Lizotte’s first four games back in action.

I think the common logic would be that the magic should immediately come back, but here it took a couple of games to find it again.

“I think for me coming off an injury, it took me a little bit to get my timing back,” Lizotte added. “When there [aren’t] other factors, when we didn’t have a break, I think normally, you can put us back together and we’re going to gel pretty quickly, but circumstances were a little different than normal. It’s nice to be playing well.”

Against San Jose, we saw them gel, as expected.

A strong play on Lewis’ goal, which capped off a night in which we saw more of the group play that line had done so effectively earlier in the season.

“A step in the right direction for us,” Lewis said of the Sharks game. “It feels like, when we’re playing well, we’re all three hounding the puck and there’s not a lot of space out there for [the opposition].”

Against Vegas, Lizotte’s line showed a willingness to put the puck into the offensive zone and forecheck to win it back. It was a night when the opposition did a good job of clogging up the neutral zone, which made controlled zone entries a problem. Lizotte’s line showed tenacity and energy in getting the puck into the offensive end and going to work. The result was a lot of time spent in the o-zone.

“They have a tenacity to them,” Todd McLellan added. “In the third period [against Vegas] their ice time got shortened a little bit, but they had a pretty darn good night. They’ve played well for us all year and we expect that moving forward.”

Expecting to see that line remain together tonight and moving ahead, as the Kings have something they like and can consistently rely upon. On them to keep it rolling. History says they probably will.

Sorting Out Special Teams
Entering tonight’s game, the Kings rank first in the league on the penalty kill, at 87% and 18th on the power play at 19.1%.

The penalty kill numbers are even more impressive at home, with the Kings posting a staggering 90.2% clip this season at Crypto.com Arena, one of two teams in the NHL at over 90 percent. Think about it….that’s 9 of every 10 opposing power plays neutralized on home ice. For a team that hasn’t found a ton of consistency at home, that’s certainly one in the plus column.

Tonight, the NHL’s most-improved penalty killing unit will face last season’s number-one ranked power play.

The Oilers still possess a Top-10 unit and a unit that’s on the upswing as the team has played better overall. The Kings have met the challenge to date. As 2023 comes to a close, they’re hoping to continue to do so.

“We talked about this during the break, we’ve asked a group of individuals to change the way they do things and it takes some time, they have been open to it, they’ve accepted it and they’ve applied it,” Todd McLellan said of the team’s PK. “The thing that we’ve had early in the season was some success with it, so you always have a better chance when the proof is in the pudding. Now, we have to grow it a little bit, we have to maintain it, we can’t get comfortable and let it slip. That’s probably the stage we’re in.”

The power play has gone through spurts of production and spurts of stagnation. There have been days where it’s looked incredible and others where it’s struggled.

Such is life in the NHL, but lately, there have been signs of progress. Six straight games with a power-play goal, followed by three without, though on Thursday in Las Vegas, the Kings scored a 6-on-5 goal, with McLellan believing the power play just before that spurred on the momentum to create that goal. He was complementary of the puck movement from that unit against San Jose on Wednesday as well, though again, it didn’t result in a goal.

It’s not perfect as we flip the calendar, and the Kings know they’re capable of more. Signs of progress, though. A decent place to start.

“We had an opportunity at the end of the game [on Thursday] and I thought that one opportunity there was aggressive, we created some chances and it carried over into the 6-on-5 scenario,” McLellan said this morning. “For the last four minutes, we almost played with an extra guy and some of our best chances came in those situations. At the end of the year, when you look at the number, you’ll say we’re at this percentage and we scored, but sometimes timely scoring is important. We needed one and we didn’t get it that night but it wasn’t through lack of execution, in my opinion.”

Against Edmonton tonight, special teams is always paramount. Hard to walk away from either postseason series not acknowledging that special teams was a huge factor in the outcome. Since making a coaching change last month, the Oilers rank fifth in PP% and sixth in PK%. Only the Boston Bruins rank higher in PP + PK percentage. A dangerous opponent on special teams, with a focus on those areas once again tonight.

Let’s run it back from the postseason. A lot has changed, both in terms of personnel and placement in the standings. The Kings and Oilers sit level on games played, but the Kings have 11 more points entering tonight. From Edmonton’s coaching change on, though, records are nearly identical (LA, 12-5-1 vs. EDM, 13-6-0). Another good one likely on our hands, as the Kings look to end the year on a high note.