3/13 Preview – Tonight’s Vitals + Limiting The Penalties, Adrian & Anderson, Uniform Gretzky-Off in STL

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (33-20-11) @ St. Louis Blues (33-29-3)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Wednesday, March 13 @ 4:30 PM Pacific
WHERE: Enterprise Center – St. Louis, MO
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West / TNT – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings are back on the road this evening as they visit the St. Louis Blues to begin a three-game trip.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Adrian Kempe leads the Kings with three points (1-2-3) this season from the two previous meetings against the Blues. Kempe is one of four Kings – along with Phillip Danault, Drew Doughty and Anze Kopitar – with points in both games this season versus St. Louis. Tonight’s game concludes the season series between the two teams.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings opted not to practice yesterday before flying to St. Louis and re-took the ice this morning in Missouri, in advance of tonight’s game, with a full-team morning skate.

Goaltender Cam Talbot was off first this morning for the Kings, making him tonight’s projected starter versus the Blues. Talbot earned a 5-1 win over St. Louis earlier this season, with 29 saves on 30 shots against. He carries with him a lifetime record of 8-8-6 from 23 appearance against the Blues, with a .896 save percentage and a 3.11 goals-against average.

Here’s how the Kings aligned during today’s morning skate –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Spence
Moverare

Talbot
Rittich

This is an identical look to what we saw from the Kings during morning skate on Monday, before hosting the New York Islanders in their homestand finale. Arthur Kaliyev was the odd-man out in that game, in what Jim Hiller called a “coaches decision” to play with 11 forwards and seven defensemen. Unclear for sure, but definitely could be the same alignment here tonight.

As we’ve seen under Hiller, the Kings have not been shy to move pieces around, especially amongst the forwards, throughout the course of a game. Should the Kings continue with 11 forwards tonight, or even if it’s 12 dressed, don’t expect to necessarily see these lines continue for 60(+) minutes. We’ve seen pieces move around and we can expect to continue to see that going forward.

BLUES VITALS: St. Louis begins what could be, potentially, a season-defining homestand tonight against the Kings, the first of four straight played on home ice. The Blues enter the day outside of playoff positioning, eight points behind the Kings and Vegas for the final wild card position.

Look for St. Louis to turn to their regular starting goaltender Jordan Binnington for tonight’s matchup. Binnington ranks tied for seventh in the NHL in games played this season amongst goaltenders and has faced the Kings 15 times throughout his NHL career, his fourth most of any opponent. Binnington brings a lifetime record against LA of 5-8-2, with a .903 save percentage and a 2.91 goals-against average.

Per Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic, here’s how the Blues lined up last time out versus Boston –

#stlblues projected lineup at Boston:

Schenn-Thomas-Kyrou
Bolduc-Buchnevich-Neighbours
Saad-Hayes-Kapanen
Toropchenko-Sundqvist-Walker

Leddy-Parayko
Krug-Kessel
Perunovich-Faulk

Hofer

— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) March 11, 2024

Look for former Kings first-round pick Brayden Schenn to be in tonight’s lineup on the top forward line. St. Louis forward Robert Thomas leads the team with 70 points entering tonight’s game.

Notes –
Stay Out Of The Box
Perhaps priority number one in tonight’s game is to cut down on the number of penalties taken.

The penalty kill was outstanding against the Islanders on Monday, arguably the biggest driving force behind the shutout victory with a 5-for-5 performance. It was also overburdened.

“It just takes guys out of the game if we’re in the box too much, even when we’ve been solid on the kill,” forward Trevor Moore said. “Big momentum on the kill is always good, but definitely we need to take less penalties.”

That doesn’t mean less physical, though.

The penalties the Kings want to work out of their game are the stick infractions, the penalties that are preventable. While offensive-zone penalties are usually a no-no in all situations, one like Adrian Kempe took on Monday is perhaps one the Kings can live with, because it was taken in a situation where a player made a physical play, trying to generate a scoring chance.

Kempe won a battle deep in the offensive zone, drove the net with physicality, took a bump from New York blueliner Adam Pelech and went through Ilya Sorokin at the top of the crease. Contact or not, it was a penalty, but Jim Hiller liked the physicality Kempe showed to first force the turnover in the corner and then the intensity he showed to take the puck to the net and draw the contact from Pelech.

“He hits Pelech in the corner, he turns the puck over and makes a quick play to the slot, he’s going to the net,” Jim Hiller said of Kempe’s penalty. “You guys saw that, saw the slow mo of it, I’m not sure if Pelech pushed him or he went into the goalie, but he was going to the goalie hard, Pelech had to make contact……there was an intensity there, an intensity to turn the puck over and an intensity to score. I thought he carried that on all night.”

Before the game, when asked about what he most wanted to see from his team against the Islanders that did not show up versus Dallas on Saturday, the answer was physicality in the offensive zone. Physicality on the forecheck, specifically from the F1 in those situations. When you get that, sometimes you’ll take penalties, but those are typically the infractions you can live with. They’re not lazy or careless and they don’t occur all that often.

The Kings encourage physicality in those situations. It’s the other types of penalties they want to see taken out of their game.

On the most recent homestand, the disparity in power plays was minus-seven for the Kings. Since the All-Star break, the Kings have been minus-14 in terms of number of power plays and they’ve been shorthanded an average of 3.44 times per game, the fourth-highest rate in the NHL and an uptick from where they were at prior to the break. Cut down on the penalties, keep everyone in the game, establish the rhythm and flow that’s made the Kings successful in the past.

Adrian & Anderson
The LA Kings played a total of five games without forward Adrian Kempe and defenseman Mikey Anderson. They posted a record of 3-1-1 in those games.

“It’s what we needed to do,” Jim Hiller said. “We needed to get points and nothing changes when you bring new guys into the lineup. Our job was to win games and collect points and we felt those guys did a pretty good job of that.”

If you look at who Kempe and Anderson are, you’re talking about a player who has spent the bulk of the season as your first-line right winger and a player who has spent the bulk of the season as your first-pairing left-shot defenseman. It’s certainly not preferable to anyone to be without those individuals.

The Kings want those players in action and they’ve now got both back. If you look at each of their games on Monday against the Islanders, you’d see why.

Jim Hiller would have been complementary of Adrian Kempe’s game with or without the goal, for the complete, physical, 200-foot game he played. He did also score, though, and it was a vintage effort from Kempe, who showed no ill effects on that play of the injury that cost him five games, as he buried the game-winning goal against the Islanders.

Hiller also praised Anderson’s game, recounting at least four times when the reliable blueliner broke up a play with his stick defensively. Believe it or not, the numbers said that Anderson had four pass breakups in the defensive zone with his stick, tied for the most on the Kings. Anderson is not known for his offensive game, but he embraces what he is known for – defending. Versus New York, Anderson leaned into his game and played it effectively. The results were evident.

So, naturally, the Kings are excited to have those players back in the fold.

“Two veterans, obviously Juice can score goals and Mikey is a good shutdown d-man,” forward Phillip Danault said. “So they bring a lot to our team and we all know their value for us. They showed it last game, [Mikey] shut them down and Juice scored a goal, they did exactly what we need to do, we’re doing our job.”

What those players also do is begin to put the rest of the lineup into place.

At even strength, the Kings deploy Anderson regularly with Drew Doughty. While that role was filled pretty admirably by the duo of Jacob Moverare and Brandt Clarke, who seemingly rotated those the minutes with an 11/7 alignment, Anderson is a 20-minute player who stands up to the challenge of what playing alongside Doughty brings. It also allows the minutes to be spread out more evenly lower in the lineup.

For Kempe, he brings another top-six caliber forward into the mix which allots the Kings additional versatility. He’s been a regular alongside Anze Kopitar and Quinton Byfield on the top forward line, but he’s also capable of meshing in lower in the lineup, which gives someone like Pierre-Luc Dubois another horse to run with, aiding the depth of the group.

“They’re super important to our team, that’s no secret,” Moore added. “Obviously you saw Juice rip it last game and Mikey does all the stuff that maybe you don’t notice but you feel it when the game’s over, it was nice to have Mikey there. It’s big.”

90’s Night
Lastly, Insiders, a flashback tonight with the uniform battle.

90's jerseys are back in style tonight vs. LA. #stlblues

PREVIEW ➡️ https://t.co/VFgQkyMxIK https://t.co/VFgQkyMxIK

— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) March 13, 2024

Kings of a Gretzky-off, isn’t it?

One of the coolest parts of having a white alternate jersey is the opportunity to create some terrific uniform matchups on the road, when wearing the alternates in away buildings. Should be an interesting one tonight, for sure.

Kings and Blues, a rare puck drop at 4:30 Pacific time, considering the TNT broadcast out of market. Bally Sports West as usual for those in LA, TNT game nationally for everyone out of market in the US, as the Kings start a three-game swing.