Practice 1/23 – Roy Returns, Kopitar Maintenance Day + Thoughts On Where We’re At & Today’s Alignment

“We have to look big picture, but we live in the moment.”

Aint that the truth, and the two sides couldn’t be much further apart right now.

“Big picture says that we’ve done some good things,” Todd McLellan said this morning. “We had a really good start and we’ve fallen off a little bit for different reasons. Small picture is we’re in one right now and it’s tense. So, we can use the big picture to remind of what they’ve done in the past and we can use the small picture to push them a little bit and say we’ve got to get it done. That’s the combination of both.”

In the small picture, it’s tough sledding.

McLellan put it pretty bluntly last night. Feels like the Kings are chasing it both ways right now.

If you fall on the side of should have scored another goal against San Jose, the Kings would agree with you. If you fall on the side of shouldn’t have allowed three, and three goals should have been enough, they’d agree with you as well. A game that got away and a point lost, as Adrian Kempe said, as opposed to a point earned. Not usually the answer you get when you trail 3-2 with under two minutes to play, but every night that’s not two points feels like points dropped right now, no matter how the games are going.

Last night’s game flow was like many on the current stretch of games that’s seen the Kings drop 11 of 13 in total, with a 2-6-5 record in total. The Kings were, large in part, the better and more dangerous team over 65 minutes. Their 78 shot attempts were the second most in a game this season, one shy of a season-high. Offensively, the Kings saw chance after chance go by early without a goal and all of a sudden, a pair of breakdowns and they’re in a 2-0 hole.

Credit to the group for coming back, both from 2-0 and 3-2. Shows it’s not a team that’s rolling over when times get tough…..and they are tough. It shows a team that is still capable of finding goals. But, this is a story we’ve read before. The Kings have largely controlled the flow of play most nights, as they did against yesterday, but are continually finding themselves on the wrong side of the key moments in the game. That’s what makes it all the more frustrating. The Kings have a poor record over their last 13 games but they haven’t played poorly.

Against Nashville and New York, the Kings checked effectively and gave up very little. Last night, we can look at the goals against, and the shifts and moments that led to them, wondering where they came from after two solid showings. Or we can point to the chances not taken at the other end, as the Kings created more than enough to hit four goals, and then some, to cover up any mistakes that might have been there.

Chasing it in both directions, even though the distance to go either way isn’t all that far. One more chance at home to find the right path forward. That’s the small picture.

The bigger picture is a team with 53 points from 44 games played. A 99-point pace, which is a playoff team in most years. Now, pace is exactly that. You don’t get those points until you get them, and the Kings will have to sort things out in order to hit that number or one near it. That’s why though, when questions have been asked about if it feels like a season is potentially slipping away, the answers have all been no. The Kings are currently tied for the third playoff spot in the Pacific Division as of this morning and have a four-point gap in the wildcard spot, with games in hand.

The small picture and the big picture. The former impacts the latter and the former had the Kings back on the ice for a practice today, before the homestand finale tomorrow evening against Buffalo.

Here’s how the Kings aligned this morning –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Spence – Clarke

Rittich / Talbot

Forward Anze Kopitar took a maintenance day today with Arthur Kaliyev hopping into his spot with Byfield and Kempe. No worries about Kopitar’s status for his milestone night tomorrow. More on 11’s night to follow.

First things first, defenseman Matt Roy was back with the group today, after missing yesterday’s game following the birth of his first child, with his wife Linsey. Congratulations to the Roy’s on a special day! Everyone doing well at home. Roy re-took his usual spot with defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov on the team’s second pair.

During the third period last night, the Kings moved Quinton Byfield back to LW1 with Kopitar and Kempe, with Pierre-Luc Dubois moving back to the center position. Those changes remained intact today, though without Kopitar on the ice for practice.

Instant dividends were made on the former, with Byfield scoring the game-tying goal on his first shift back in that role, with Kempe the facilitator on the primary assist. 10 shot attempts for, compared to four against, in just over six minutes together in the third sees that line back together again today. Byfield has been the right fit on that line for the better part of 12 months, though a lack of production from that trio of late prompted a change. Kings had to try something there, but ultimately, all road led back to this alignment.

For Dubois, he’s clearly more comfortable in the middle of the ice. He admitted when first moving to wing that he had never played the left before and felt there could be an adjustment, which we saw against the Rangers and Sharks. There’s been a lot of that word, adjustment, from both player and coach. As McLellan said last night, the Kings are looking for Dubois to be a difference maker, at a time when the Kings are in need of difference makers. Dubois has been publicly open to coaching and McLellan has noted several meetings in hopes of doing so and ultimately the goal is uniform. To win. The focus, though, should not be on one player. The Kings don’t need one guy right now. They need a heck of a lot more than that. The focus right now needs to stretch beyond one player, one line, one pair, because more than that is needed to right the ship.

For today, the rest of the lineup looked similar.

The Danault line has been the team’s most consistent as of late. Despite the struggles to find wins and goals, that line has been consistently in control in the offensive zone. Since they were put back together eight games ago, the 22/24/12 line has been on the ice for five goals for together, compared to just two against. Fiala has led the way with eight points in that stretch, while Moore leads the team with four goals, and also has seven points, while Danault has six points of his own. Some power-play production and some 5-on-5 goals when the line had one member off for a chance, such as Moore’s goal yesterday.

“They’re our most consistent line right now, I think that’s easy for everyone to see,” McLellan said. “They’re not giving up a lot, they are creating a lot, it’s not going in the net regularly, but no shortage of chances. They’re a line we feel we can count on.”

Defensive pairings were a rotation, as we’ve seen as of late. Thus far, the Kings have not opted to move away from the left/right combinations that are naturally preferable. People calling for it seem to forget the reaction last season to the 4 RHD alignment when calling out for it this year, but it is an option should the Kings look to make a change there.

That being said, having both Jordan Spence and Brandt Clarke not playing regularly is likely not a rest-of-season solution, though it’s fine, development wise, right now. For Clarke, there are benefits to being around the NHL team every day, working with and learning from players like Drew Doughty and getting looks at this level when he has. What’s not ideal is not having a run of games thus far for Clarke, which is really the way we’ll get a true read on where he’s at. Everyone understands that.

“[Clarke’s] situation is tough, he’s like a ping pong ball, he’s in one game and out the next,” McLellan said. “Jordan Spence, playing very good in my opinion and we’re developing guys. We have a physical d-man, who provides us with certain things and we have a big four. It’s tough to go in and out every night. I think if we play [Clarke] more, we’ll see more, and we’ll have to make those decisions as we go forward.”

So that’s today.

Tomorrow is a big night for the Kings, both with the pre-game recognition of Anze Kopitar and the whole current state of affairs, with a massive two points on the table. Perhaps Kopitar’s night can be a spark. Perhaps not. Regardless, he’s earned the night and he’s earned the moment. The Kings need a moment of their own and they’re hopeful that both can come together on Wednesday. More to come on Kopitar tonight and more on tomorrow’s game tomorrow.