There’s a tendency after a big playoff win – like the kind of win the Los Angeles Kings enjoyed in Game 2 in Edmonton with captain Anze Kopitar stunning the Oilers with the overtime winner in a 5-4 victory – to pause, reflect, exhale even.
But those moments are fleeting and quickly put aside. Already, the Kings are turning their collective attention to Games 3 and 4 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Friday and Sunday.
If there was one consistent message from head coach Jim Hiller in the aftermath of Wednesday’s series-evening victory, is that the job isn’t done and there’s a lot of work yet to do.
“I think the bigger point is from Game 1 to Game 2 we had to play a lot better. I think we played a lot closer to our game last night but I think we’ve still got another level,” Hiller said when he met with the media at the team’s hotel in Edmonton before jetting back to California. I think the guys feel good. That was an emotional win for sure. But I think they do understand we’ve got another level that we need to get to. So that’ll be our focus is we got to get better.”
Here are 5 of the major talking points leading into Game 3 on Friday.
The Forward Group Deployment
Interesting use of personnel in Game 2 as Hiller dressed 12 forwards and six defensemen but used forward Carl Grundstrom for one 25-second shift during the game rotating his other 11 forwards the rest of the way.
“I had talked to Grunny earlier and said that we probably, no fault of his, probably going to look at running 11 forwards, but we wanted him on the bench with 11 so he knew he wasn’t going to play that much in that game,” Hiller said.
It’s all about getting his deep forward corps engaged in the game.
That’s sometimes difficult if you’re running four full lines and there are penalty kill or power play opportunities that alter the flow of the lines. Especially for the group of forwards who don’t kill penalties – think Kevin Fiala, Viktor Arvidsson, Quinton Byfield, Pierre-Luc Dubois – it’s an opportunity to get them extra shifts and engage in the game.
“Some of our other players who don’t penalty kill, you know they can lose the flow of the game, so they enjoy it more I know,” Hiller said of having 11 forwards in action. “We’ve talked about it a lot. We really just think for our team, the way it is right now, that gives us an advantage getting those players more ice time.”
Hiller could, of course, dress 11 forwards and seven defensemen but he liked the flexibility of having that 12th forward on the bench even if, as was the case with Grundstrom, that player doesn’t play much. The Kings have run the 11/7 look regularly under Hiller, but opted for a different approach in Game 2.
“Rather than seven ‘D’ we need the other forward there for different reasons,” Hiller explained. “Different stuff can happen. Somebody can be not playing well, somebody can leave with an injury and we’ll need that depth.”
Why It Works, The Byfield Effect
Quinton Byfield is a perfect example of a player who seems to thrive with the 11-forward rotation. He had two assists in Game 2 including the primary assist on Kopitar’s overtime winner. He logged 17:27 in ice time, about a minute more than he played in Game 1. So impressed has Hiller and his staff been Byfield is likely to see even more ice time moving forward, as we saw routinely at times during the regular season.
“I thought he was pretty good. I thought he was one of our better players in Game 1 also,” Hiller said. “That’s a playoff style player. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s quick, he’s got lots of energy. I probably didn’t play him enough in these first two games. He can run 20 minutes. He’s got that in him. That might be one thing you see is just a little bit more of Quinton.”
And it’s not just the offense that Byfield can bring to the proceedings, Hiller has been impressed with his attention to detail on the defensive side of the puck.
“When he’s playing that game he’s an effective player, again both ways because he tracks back through the middle. We talked about cleaning up the neutral zone, he’s one of those guys that’s tracking back and making it hard on their rushes,” Hiller said.
Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images
New Dance Partners Keeps You On Your Toes
To roll out the kind of game plan that Hiller and his staff did in Game 2 requires a high level of buy-in from your forward group and a high degree of comfort in playing with different players at different points of the game.
“You kind of don’t really know when it’s coming,” forward Alex Laferriere said of the changes in linemates. “I think we’re kind of spoiled where we have so many great players on the team and we have really good relationships with everyone so no matter who you’re going onto the ice with you kind of know what kind of player they are and know what their habits are.”
The adjustment seems to be pretty seamless even for a young player experiencing his National Hockey League playoff run like Laferriere.
He played in his first-ever NHL game in Game 1 and was noticeably more comfortable in Game 2.
“For me, especially coming from college, I was playing on the same line pretty much the whole time and you only play 30 games,” added Laferriere who played two seasons at Harvard. “Now you’re around these guys for 80 games watching them every shift so it’s kind of easy to pick up on little habits that they do.”
Living Up To Expectations
Laferriere had been dreaming about playing in his first NHL playoff game since he was a kid. In spite of the outcome of Game 1 it more than lived up to its billing.
“I think it was everything I imagined,” Laferriere said. “Growing up as a kid I watched pretty much every playoff game with my dad. I always knew kind of in the back of my head that I wanted to be there one day and being out there in Game 1 is kind of a dream come true. Obviously not the result we wanted but for me I think it was everything I expected, it was physical, it was fast-paced. There’s a lot on the line so everybody’s trying their hardest.”
It certainly doesn’t hurt to have teammates who have been through the playoff ringer to look up to and learn from on the fly.
“It helps a lot. As a young player you lose Game 1 you kind of think it’s the end of the world and think there’s no coming back from it,” Laferriere said. “But you lean on those older guys who’ve had a lot of experience and they just kind of tell you that you can’t get too emotional about it and kind of forget about it and there’s still six more games for us.”
PP Work Ahead
The Kings penalty kill was more structured in Game 2 starting with Talbot as the Kings allowed the Oilers one goal on three opportunities after allowing three Edmonton power play goals on four chances in Game 1.
Still, the special teams battle still leans slightly in favor of Edmonton as the Kings went 0-for-3 with the man advantage and managed to establish very little zone time and/or high danger chances with the man advantage. Hiller and his coaching staff have addressing the power play issue on their ‘to do’ list when they get back in Los Angeles.
“We’re not executing well,” Hiller said. “They’re putting a little more pressure on us than they have in the past. We have to break the pressure. We had a tough time with that clearly. But we’ll get back to that. We understand it and we’ll fix it. That’s an area we can be better at though that’s for sure.”
Kings are flying back to Los Angeles as we speak and will not practice today. Expect the full group on the ice tomorrow for morning skate, as the Kings prepare to host Edmonton in Game 3.
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