Practice 4/17 – Talking Opponent & Lineup – Hiller Gives Lineup Thoughts + Grundstrom, Turcotte Updates

The process of Game 1 preparation was in full force, as the Kings hit the ice for their final practice of the regular season.

Kevin Fiala – We’ve just got one more game, so we just we want to be as good as possible and feel good going into the playoffs. We know how that kind of hockey is, we know how it feels, so I’m sure we’re going to be ready. We had a good practice today, good energy and you can feel it, the playoff vibe. I’m very comfortable with this group, confident that we’re going to be ready when it’s time.

Mikey Anderson – You want to be feeling good going into playoffs. Obviously [Monday] wasn’t it, but we got another chance in practice and another game to feel good about what we need to do. From there, it’s game on. We don’t have a lot of time to keep building, one more try and then we go.

A few different focuses during today’s skate.

5-on-5 play, in a variety of different situations, with an emphasis on forechecking.

Hiller also shared, without going into detail, that some of today’s practice had specific elements for Round 1 of the playoffs. Perhaps pertaining to certain opposition, perhaps not, but today was a day for that work, to not have it bogging anyone down heading closer to the first game.

“We had a lot of 5-on-5 play, you saw that, we did some forecheck, we didn’t care for our forecheck against Minnesota so we worked on the forecheck,” Hiller said. “Got a couple of other specific things that we might see from the teams that we play, we want to make sure that we get that up and out of the way and as we get ready to go play those teams, we’re not thinking too much and we just go out and have a good practice and not overthink it. We tried to do a little bit of that adjustment work in today’s practice to get prepared for the playoffs.”

Everyone on the roster was on the ice, as 13 forwards, seven defensemen and two goaltenders skated for 30-40 minutes at Toyota Sports Performance Center.

The team aligned as follows –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Spence
Moverare

Rittich / Talbot

So, entering the day, it felt as if Kings had established a preferred look over the last few games, when everyone has been healthy and available. At least within the top six, right? We haven’t always seen the best version of this group, which tends to be the case when you talk about inconsistency. The best versions of the 55/11/9 and 12/24/33 lines are quite good, though. Bottom-six combinations have shown flashes, even if not consistency, with pieces more apt to move around.

Then came today.

The Kings rolled back out a look they introduced midway through Monday’s game against Minnesota. Alex Laferriere joined Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe, while Quinton Byfield joined Pierre-Luc Dubois and the recently recalled Alex Turcotte.

“I wouldn’t read too much into the lines from that perspective,” Hiller said. “The lines have a tendency to change around here.”

For starters, while I have the lines listed, 1-4, this is about as balanced a look as the Kings have ever utilized.

Hiller feels that the balance at even strength has been pretty well split between his four centers, and by extension, his four lines.

“We have four centermen and if you look at the minutes at even strength, there’s different ways to look at it,” Hiller said. “Liz penalty kills, Dubie doesn’t penalty kill, so his minutes are going to be down and he’s on second power play, but if you just go and look at even-strength minutes, you’re pretty even throughout most of our centers.”

Personally, I don’t think the Kings have the Game 1 lineup card filled out in ink just yet.

Hiller has always shown a willingness – sometimes an eagerness – to move pieces around the lineup as needed. The Kings have dabbled in both 12/6 and 11/7 alignments throughout the second half of the season. Forward Carl Grundstrom is winding down a conditioning loan in the AHL with the Ontario Reign. Grundstrom will certainly be back with the big club and it’ll be interesting how he’s worked back in, having not played an NHL game in 2.5 months, once he ultimately does return.

“He played one game, played really well, they’re playing tonight again and he’ll be going again tonight, he’ll play a lot of minutes, he’ll look forward to playing a lot again,” Hiller said of Grundstrom. “Talked to him just the other day, he came in and we talked about his game. He said he felt a little sluggish in some areas, better in others, nothing to be unexpected. He just needs to play, play a lot of minutes and we’re trying to speed up the process of him getting his timing and all those kinds of things back.”

Additionally, forwards Alex Turcotte and Akil Thomas swapped places yesterday afternoon, with Turcotte joining the Kings today at practice and Thomas joining the Reign on their trip to Bakersfield, where they will play their third-to-last game of the season here this evening.

Hiller was complementary of the way that Thomas played, as he has been over the last couple of weeks. We haven’t seen the last of Akil Thomas. It’s important to remember that the moves and decisions for today are not always the moves and decisions for tomorrow. So, look for Thomas to play tonight with Ontario, while Turcotte appears to be an option to check in tomorrow for the Kings. Turcotte had a really strong first day back, in Hiller’s eyes.

“I had a good talk with Turc today, he went down and played those games and he felt like the game slowed down for him a little bit,” Hiller said. “So, what a great process for him to come up and play as much as he did, go down and get another look at it after having the confidence and the ability to play and play well at the NHL level. He a great practice out there today, I don’t know if anybody noticed, but he really jumped out to me. Hopefully it just helps his overall career arc.”

Regarding the rest of the group, Hiller reinforced that the lines we saw today might not even be the lines tomorrow, let alone for Game 1. They also might be.

When he says “I don’t know, exactly” with regards to that sort of future telling, I think he means it. We’ve seen a willingness to maneuver the pieces around and a willingness to remain consistent when things are working.

“I don’t know exactly – I think the Danault line and the Lizotte line have stayed pretty consistent, those two lines, over the last couple of weeks or so,’ Hiller said. “So, that’s one thing we really haven’t touched those too much. The other two have been kind of moving parts, different players in, Akil in and stuff like that. So, I couldn’t tell you, we’ll see what it looks like tomorrow night.”

Hiller added that come the playoffs, it’s only natural to be a bit more focused on matchups, line matching and things like that with a specific opponent. Especially over the course of seven games, that kind of stuff comes into focus.

He talked about the added elements of the postseason being a part of the lineup conversation as the team works towards the playoffs.

“In the playoffs you look at the matchups a little more, you see who will get last change, so that could have an effect on who they’re trying to match up against, there’s a lot of different things that go into it,” Hiller added. “We won’t let that dictate our decision, but it’s part of the conversation if nothing else.”

One more game to roll things out and then we’ll get a sense of where everything comes into place heading into the first game of the postseason.

Morning skate tomorrow, expecting it to be optional, and then we’ll see the regular season finale against Chicago.

In terms of tonight, the Dallas / St. Louis game is only one with playoff implications for the Kings. If Dallas earns at least one point, they will win the Western Conference regular season title and the Kings will no longer be able to face Vancouver in Round 1. If the Stars lose in regulation, then Dallas, Edmonton and Vancouver are all possible Round 1 destinations, with the final fate not determined until Thursday evening.