Kopitar Talks Doughty Milestone, Excellence + Injury Updates & The Search For Consistency

Drew Doughty recorded the 500th assist of his NHL career on Thursday in Vancouver.

A special moment, regardless, but for Doughty, it was extra special for it to come on his longtime friend and teammate Anze Kopitar’s goal.

“It’s cool and apparently it was on Kopi’s goal too. Me and Kopi played together for a long time, there’s not a guy that I look for more than him. In my entire career, there’s not another guy that I’d rather play with than him. For it to be on his goal, I think that makes it extra special.

It’s been a season of milestones for Kopitar, Doughty and the Kings as a whole.

When you play together for as long as Kopitar and Doughty have, you’re bound to connect on a few goals along the way. 299 in fact, with their next combined goal involvement to be the 300th time they’ve done so on the same goal throughout their time together.

“We’ve played together for 16 years, you’re bound to go through some some milestones and some accomplishments together,” Kopitar said this morning. “I love it, because Dewey is scoring goals this year too and the thing is, he’s always put up points, very, very decent points, but that doesn’t really say a whole lot about him, because he’s so much better and a more complete player than most people realize.”

If you know Doughty, you know about the pride he takes in his defensive game. The pride he takes in playing against top-level competition every night. The pride he takes in trying to shut those players down as regularly as he can.

Kopitar certainly knows Doughty and certainly knows what he delivers for this group.

“He’s playing against top people all the time, he’s a plus player for the most part,” Kopitar added. “Yes, it’s great that he’s hitting all these milestones, but if you’re paying close attention for the better part of 15 years, he’s a world class player and that’s why he is Drew Doughty, right?”

The same Drew Doughty who leads the NHL in time on ice per game. The same Drew Doughty who has 14 goals this season, one shy of the league lead amongst defensemen. The same Drew Doughty who is averaging his lowest on-ice goals against per/60 since the 2016-17 season.

The same Drew Doughty, most importantly, who does what it takes to win, each and every time he takes the ice.

“He’s the ultimate competitor,” Kopitar concluded with. “As we all know, he gets heated up, but for him it’s about wins. It’s not about anything else, it’s about wins. It’s about getting the team to the top and that’s what he’s been doing.”

A Royal Duo 👑 pic.twitter.com/C6AG5T2pcQ

— LA Kings (@LAKings) March 1, 2024

For today, the LA Kings hit the ice for practice here this morning in El Segundo, skating for approximately 40 minutes in advance of tomorrow’s return to game action against the New Jersey Devils. The Kings haven’t had a ton of downtime in terms of days off between games. Generally speaking, it’s been game, day off, game, repeat. A small break here, before the team begins a season-long, five-game homestand tomorrow afternoon versus the Devils.

Here’s how the Kings aligned this morning at Toyota Sports Performance Center –

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

Moverare – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Spence
Clarke

Rittich / Talbot

That’s about the size of it right now. Didn’t look different than what we saw on Thursday in Vancouver, when the Kings lined up with 11 forwards and 7 defensemen for the first time during the regular season. Jim Hiller noted that he wanted to get Brandt Clarke into a game and the 11/7 approach gave him the best chance to do it. Unconfirmed whether or not the Kings stick with that approach, but Hiller “liked how we played in Vancouver with the 11/7, it worked out well.” A discussion the staff plans to have today heading into tomorrow’s game.

The Kings are obviously without several regulars right now and have just 19 healthy skaters on the active roster. With ample LTIR space available, the Kings could move either Mikey Anderson or Adrian Kempe to regular injured reserve and recall a player from AHL-Ontario if they choose to. Should the Kings ultimately desire to recall a player, the expectation is that it would be a forward, as there are just 12 currently healthy on the roster. The Kings do have seven healthy defensemen, including two regulars from the Reign squad in Moverare and Clarke.

Both the Kings and Reign are at home over the next week, which provides an easy recall opportunity should the Kings pursue it.

Regarding the injury front, Head Coach Jim Hiller provided the following update pertaining to Anderson, Kempe and forward Viktor Arvidsson –

“They are all week-to-week, I can hit that question on everybody, they’re all week-to-week,” Hiller said.

Regarding the status of Anderson and Kempe specifically, Hiller did not have any additional information regarding where those players are in the return to play process. Still early for both, so we’ll wait and see how things play out. Injured players typically skate before the Kings do, so when we see a red jersey poking around, will have that update here.

“I think it’s really early in their recovery, so it’s kind of a day by day thing, it changes, so there’s really not much of an update beyond it’s week-to-week,” Hiller added. “As we get closer, I’ll let you know.”

The “week-to-week” category is perhaps the toughest spot for the Kings to be in with regards to the time of the year. A week-to-week timeline likely points towards all three players being expected to be back during the regular season, as Hiller indicated specifically with Arvidsson, which means that their LTIR space can’t be counted upon for the trade deadline unless something changes. It also means, though, that those players aren’t available right now for a Kings team that needs them in action, with important games on the docket with regards to the playoff race. That’s your RW1, RW2 and LD1. Important pieces.

Hiller added today that he has had “higher level” conversations with management about the deadline, but his focus continues to be on coaching the team.

“Maybe higher-level conversations, but we’re just focus on trying to get the level of consistency we all know we want,” he said. “We’ve talked about it, but not at great length at all. Tomorrow is a big game, we’re just focused primarily on getting the team ready to go for tomorrow.”

As we look towards tomorrow, the biggest focus centers around carrying over Thursday’s performance into tomorrow’s game against the Devils.

The Kings were quite happy with Thursday’s effort on the whole. Drew Doughty and Cam Talbot spoke to that after the game and Anze Kopitar and Trevor Moore both added to that sentiment.

Kopitar – Probably the most complete that we’ve played in awhile. You get through spurts where you play a good two periods and then a mediocre third, but the other night, it was pretty much complete through and through. Take the positives from it and try to keep it rolling.

Moore – Just a full team effort……we were committed. It’s just staying consistent and not getting frustrated when maybe the puck isn’t bouncing in. Staying with it, playing our good, 200-foot checking game and we got rewarded in [Vancouver].

As Kopitar said, you take the positives and try to keep it rolling.

It’s important to park and ride after a loss, but it’s important not to get too caught up in a win either. Lots of positives to pull from, with the hopes of keeping those rolling into tomorrow afternoon’s game versus New Jersey.

Establishing consistency is easier said than done, though.

The highest level of the Kings is close to what we saw in Vancouver. If the Kings can start to take that consistency and translate it over the course of the games to come, they’ll be in a good place. Here’s what Hiller had to say about establishing consistency.

“I would say it’s the hardest for all of us, is to be consistent. We have our good days, we have our bad days and the players get evaluated every game on their good days and bad days. They can’t have one, or everybody sees it and talks about it. So, to maintain a level of consistency, with the demands that are required to play, travel mixed in, is really, really difficult. When you get that as a player, and is spreads throughout a team, now you’ve got something and now you’re a difficult team to be. That’s what everybody’s trying to get to.”

A good day on Thursday and the mark of a team that’s getting back to the team they were earlier this season, and still believe they can be, is another good day tomorrow.

Game preview to follow tomorrow morning before the Kings host the Devils in a 12:30 puck drop.