Practice 4/21 – Off To Edmonton! Kings Alignment + Final Preparations, Doughty on Experience, Laferriere’s First Playoffs

One more for the road.

The Los Angeles Kings hit the ice late Sunday morning for one more vigorous skate before boarding the team jet and heading to Edmonton for the start of what will be the third straight first-round playoff meeting between the two teams.

Game 1 goes Monday evening and Game 2 is set for two nights later before the series returns to Los Angeles for Games 3 and 4 Friday and Sunday.

Sunday’s skate featured full participation and most of the players hit the ice well in advance of the scheduled 11 a.m. session.

As head coach Jim Hiller noted, there won’t be much time for practice once the series begins. Given that the team ran through line rushes and worked special teams in anticipation of the series opener.

Now it’s a bit of a waiting game for the next 24 hours or so for Hiller, who will be coaching his first NHL playoff game, and the rest of the coaching staff and team.

“At this point we feel like we’ve prepared the team, we’ve prepared ourselves,” Hiller said of the coaching staff. “We’ve kind of got our work done I guess you could say. I think the players, the coaches, everybody wants to get going. Let’s go……we’re just excited. We just want to get started.”

As Hiller added, the Kings/Oilers series will be the last of the eight opening round series to get underway.

Old hat? Not quite.

You might imagine that after having won two Stanley Cups, been to another Western Conference Final and will skate in NHL playoff game 91 on Monday, all this might be a bit routine for future Hall of Famer Drew Doughty. Nope. Not even close.

“I woke up this morning I was pumping the tunes in the car on the way to (practice), I was just pumped up,” Doughty said. “I had a different type of energy this morning than I’ve had in the last couple of months. It’s playoff time, it’s the best time of year, the most exciting time. This is what counts. So, I’m just super excited and anxious to get the game going.”

What was on the playlist Sunday morning? Rap music. And played at a loud volume.

“I was just bumping those,” Doughty said. “Had the windows down bumping it and ready to go.”

Experience Counts
Doughty’s got plenty of it. Compared to two years ago when these two teams met in the first round the Kings now boast a wealth of playoff experience as a whole. Doughty is hoping that will pay dividends and lead to a different kind of result, a different kind of experience this time around.

“Playoff experience is important, you need to know what it feels like to lose series, not many of us know how to win series yet and that’s obviously the objective this season and we can take those past experiences use them to our advantage and hopefully pull this one out,” Doughty said.

The Road Map
Getting to that different result is a mindset, according to Doughty.

“I think we just need to have a full playoff mentality. I think we had it at times last series, last year and at the end of the series they just kind of had it up another notch than we did and they won that way. If we can have it for every single game like we should I think that’s how we’ll win.”

Leave The Fancy Stuff At Home
Having that mentality means attention to detail and not looking for the highlight reel play.

“The fancy stuff, honestly, doesn’t really work. I’ve seen it way too many times, the fancy stuff usually ends up going the other way and ending up in the back of your net. It’s the dirty goals that go in, sometimes lucky, just throwing it at the net and stuff like that, and blocking shots, finishing every check, little things like that is what’s going to work.”

When It’s Good, This Kings Team Is Really Good
Doughty believes that if this team can find its game it’s as good a team as he’s been on in many years.

“I would say this is the best team we’ve had in however many years, yeah,” Doughty said. “We feel good. We know how good our best is. It’s just we need our best to be consistent, especially at this time of year. We can’t have dips in our play.”

“We know that they’re going to bring their best so it’s going to be a war,” he added. “We just need to stay consistent and even if we’re not playing our best just try to do the simple things and try and get back to our best. It’s not an amazing play that’s going to get us back to our best it’s the simple little things, doing it right, that will make the confidence grow.”

A Happy Trio
With all of the time missed by Viktor Arvidsson this season the coaching staff deployed the talented winger in a couple of different spots once he returned to the Kings lineup. But it seemed inevitable that he’d end up playing with Phil Danault and emerging scoring star Trevor Moore.

“They’re a good two-way line but also once they get into the ‘O’ zone there’s a lot of give-and-go’s, a lot of quick plays, three foot passes, attack the net, a lot of chemistry together,” Hiller said.

First Time Is A Charm
The one player for whom Game 1 Monday will be an entirely new experience is winger Alex Laferriere.

The former Harvard player watched last year’s six-game series from the press box but this year he’ll be starting on the team’s top forward line with Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe.

“I think it’s a pretty cool time for everybody and it’s something you dream about as a kid, going to the playoffs and try to win a Stanley Cup,” Laferriere, 22, said Sunday. “But for me I’m just not trying to get too emotional about it I think. Just kind of sticking to my game is what I’m best at. I think it definitely ramps up in the playoffs but I think I can bring that physical aspect to the game so I think if I just stick to my game I’ll be good.”

“Kopy and Juice (Kopitar and Kempe) are incredible players and they play both sides of the puck so I think having those guys on the ice definitely helps a lot with confidence and everything like that,” Laferriere added. “I think I’m ready for it.”

The Grind And How To Beat It
Everyone knows that collegiate players face an enormous challenge when it comes to a full NHL regular season. Laferriere felt that he handled the grind well and was appreciative how Hiller helped him through moments when things started to go a bit sideways.

“Everybody kind of talked about that college wall throughout the season and for me I never really thought of that and never really kind of thought that I would go through that,” Laferriere said. “I mean mentally I think that’s kind of where I was at and it was kind of in the back of my mind waiting for that to happen as well. I think Jimmy did a great job of whenever my game dipped a little bit talking to me and just saying that I should get back to my game and what I do well I think that definitely helped throughout the year.”

“As much as a physical game as it is, it’s also a really big mental game too,” Laferriere added. “I mean you can get down on yourself pretty easily and kind of when you go through those dips if no one is there to kind of talk to you and get you out of that you can kind of just keep going downhill. But having those conversations and just hearing what he feels what I need to do better that definitely helped a lot.”

For those keeping score at home, the Kings’ line combinations remained consistent from the past couple of days on Sunday.

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Spence
Moverare

Talbot / Rittich / Dell

One last skate tomorrow morning, in what will likely be an optional capacity, before the Kings hit the ice for Game 1 tomorrow night in Edmonton. Another story to follow here this evening before game-day coverage begins from Alberta. One more sleep, Insiders, one more sleep.

LA Kings Fan Rally at Toyota Sports Performance Center on Saturday, April 20, 2024.