4/26 Preview – Same Lineup Expected + A Comfort In Forward Rotation, Importance of Timely Saves, Grundstrom’s Character

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (1-1) @ Edmonton Oilers (1-1)
WHAT: Stanley Cup Playoffs – Round 1, Game 3
WHEN: Friday, April 26 @ 7:30 PM Pacific
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West / TBS – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: After securing a split in Edmonton, the Kings head home for Game 3, the first of two on the docket in Los Angeles this weekend.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Adrian Kempe has had multiple points in each of the team’s first two games, as he leads the way with four points (3-1-4) in total in the series. Forward Quinton Byfield was +4 last game and is +5 with three assists throughout the series, leading the Kings in both categories.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held a full-team morning skate today, following an off-ice workout yesterday, in lieu of a practice day.

Goaltender Cam Talbot was off the ice first this morning for the Kings, which would point towards him as tonight’s starter in net. Talbot evened his record on the series with 27 saves in Game 2 on Wednesday. On the series, Talbot is 1-1 with a .867 save percentage and a 4.96 goals-against average.

Following yesterday’s travel day, the Kings were back on the ice for a full-team morning skate earlier today in El Segundo. Here’s how the team aligned this morning –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Spence
Moverare

Talbot / Rittich / Dell

So. That’s what we saw this morning. But, if Games 1 and 2 are any indication, there’s really not a ton of sense in reading into these lines as anything more than a good starting point. In Game 1, the Kings used their warmups lines for exactly two shifts. In Game 2, the line that started the game was already a deviation from those groupings.

The Kings essentially ran 11 forwards in Game 2, with Carl Grundstrom the odd-man out with just 25 seconds of ice time. It was a situation the Kings planned out, to engage some of the team’s top offensive weapons who don’t kill penalties with more icetime. The plan worked on Wednesday and looks likely to continue into Game 3 tonight.

OILERS VITALS: The Oilers head to Crypto.com Arena with a record of 4-2 in this building during the postseason, in their last six trips.

Look for regular starter Stuart Skinner to be back between the pipes for Game 3 this evening. Skinner has posted a record of 1-1 in this series, with a .857 save percentage and a 4.42 goals-against average. Skinner went 1-1 in Los Angeles during last season’s series but was pulled in favor of Jack Campbell in Game 4, a comeback win for the Oilers.

Per Bob Stauffer of the Oilers radio broadcast, here’s how Edmonton lined up during today’s morning skate –

The @EdmontonOilers morning skate in Los Angeles:

Henrique-McDavid-Hyman
RNH-Draisaitl-Foegele
Kane-McLeod-Perry
Holloway-Carrick-Janmark
Gagner-Ryan-Brown

Ekholm-Bouchard
Nurse-Ceci
Kulak-Desharnais
Stecher

Skinner
Pickard

— Bob Stauffer (@Bob_Stauffer) April 26, 2024

The Oilers held consistent with no lineup changes between Game 1 and Game 2. Forward Dylan Holloway scored the first two playoff goals of his NHL career on Wednesday in a losing effort. Connor McDavid added an assist in Game 2 and leads all players in the postseason in assists and points (0-6-6). Forward Zach Hyman is the lone player with four goals, after he also scored in Game 2.

Notes –
Comfort In Rotation
The LA Kings are comfortable when the pieces move around.

They’ve moved around a lot over the last couple of months, beginning when Jim Hiller took over at the helm. He said this morning that it’s something he did when he was a head coach in the WHL, his last time making the final call on those types of decisions.

In Game 2, forward Carl Grundstrom only played one shift during the first period, as the Kings rolled with 11 forwards for the bulk of the evening. The Kings are expecting to roll out the same lineup here tonight, even if they’re not exactly sure how the players will be utilized.

“Carl and I talked about it before and we just felt at different times where we’ve gone with 11 forwards, it’s been 11 and 7, this is 12 and 6, but just playing 11 forwards, we found maybe a better rhythm for our forwards just generally. I asked him to be patient and be ready to play, but that he might not play as much as he typically might because of that.”

It’s a tough situation for Grundstrom, but he’s been a true professional and a terrific teammate throughout the process. Phillip Danault called him a “team guy” who understands what happened in Game 2 was about the team. You saw the celebration photos from after Anze Kopitar scored the game-winning goal and there was Grundstrom, excited with his teammates in the middle of it all.

Hiller echoed those thoughts. He spoke with Grundstrom again today and he’s going to be ready when his number is called.

“That group of 11 were the guys, for a good chunk of the latter half of the season, that were out there playing,” Hiller said. “I talked to him again today, he’s a good teammate. He was there encouraging the guys and he was ready to go. It just goes to show you the type of character he has.”

In terms of the rest of the alignment, the Kings are comfortable when operating with 11 forwards.

For guys like Quinton Byfield and Kevin Fiala, who don’t kill penalties, they see additional shifts as a result of rotating 11 forwards. Even for guys like Viktor Arvidsson and Pierre-Luc Dubois, who have more defined roles, they see additional minutes as well, whether it’s rotating onto the fourth line or elevating into a spot that was taken by someone else who rotated onto the fourth line. Those around it see the benefits, with a number of guys profiting.

“You want to get 55 out there for some extra reps and Kevin, it gets guys more into the game, especially when it’s a lot of penalty kills,” forward Trevor Moore said. “They have a lot of good players, who play a lot of minutes, so we need ours to play those minutes too.”

Byfield said after Game 2 that everyone has played with everyone for the most part this season, which makes the shuffling easy to manage. Blake Lizotte, who regularly sees different linemates, echoed those thoughts. Byfield added that it keeps everyone on their toes and not only gives the Kings a variety of looks offensively, but also makes it harder to match up against, because of the different combinations at different times.

On him specifically, Hiller admitted he could probably run him out even more than he did in Game 2, when he was +4, the first time in 30 years the Kings have had a player post a +4 rating during a playoff game.

“He’s big, he’s strong, he’s quick, he’s got lots of energy,” Hiller said. “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 we see is a little bit more of Quinton. When he’s playing that game, he’s an effective player, both ways.”

For the collective, the Kings seemed to just have that much better of a rhythm in Game 2 when the pieces were in motion. Hiller has admitted he prefers it as a coach, with the ability to maneuver things more regularly. The players seem to like it too, at least while it’s working. See how it shakes out in Game 3, as the scene shifts to Los Angeles.

As noted yesterday, the Kings aren’t particularly concerned with their matchups, even when they have the opportunity to dictate things more at home than they did in Edmonton.

With everyone trusted defensively and the team establishing a rhythm offensively, look for more of the same in that area this evening.

“You’ve got to be careful not to take your own players out of a rhythm,” Hiller added. “They dictated the matchups in Edmonton, but everybody kind of played against everybody up there. We thought we had a good balance on our lines and we don’t want to chase it too hard.”

The Importance Of Timely Saves
In a 3-3 game, late in the second period of Game 2, the Edmonton Oilers headed to the man advantage.

It was a power-play unit that had already scored in Game 2 and a power-play unit with four goals scored in nearly five periods of hockey in the series to that point. When it comes to Edmonton power plays, there’s always the risk of conceding. Two minutes can sometimes feel like four minutes. Then came arguably the biggest moment of the game from a Kings perspective. Connor McDavid weaved his way into the slot, through the heart of the Kings PK unit, and fed a puck back against the grain, to Leon Draisaitl beside the net. The rest, is highlight reel.

Highway robbery, eh? pic.twitter.com/ayAZRe8zas

— x – LA Kings (@LAKings) April 25, 2024

It was a moment in which the Kings needed a save. A 3-1 lead turned into a 4-3 deficit would’ve been tough sledding heading into the third. A tie game, more manageable.

“You need key saves sometimes and that was a big one,” forward Phillip Danault said. “That gave us the chance to win the game.”

Jim Hiller spoke about how the bench reacted to Talbot’s save. It was the save the Kings needed and it was the save the Kings got.

“There were guys on the bench with that save, they said that’s the one we needed,” Hiller detailed. “I think if you rewind the whole thing back, that was the one we needed. So, they’re timely, they’re timely for a reason. That would have been tough to come back from that one, with just the momentum and the energy, it gave us a boost and I think we took it into the period.”

Now look, goaltending numbers throughout the first two games of this series have not been all that high. Talbot’s .867 save percentage leads his counterpart, Stuart Skinner, while Skinner’s 4.42 goals-against average is the better mark of the two. Certainly a far cry from Talbot’s regular-season statline. Two-game sample sizes typically lead to obscurely stretched metrics in one way or the other, but the two games have been 7-4 and 5-4. High scoring.

From the LA perspective, saves like Talbot’s on Draisaitl kept the team in the game, or at least it kept the team alive in the game. When you’re facing the high-flying Edmonton Oilers, I don’t think you can bank on .950 goaltending to carry you through a series. If you can get the timely saves, though, if you can get the saves that contain a dangerous power play to a 1-of-3 night, if you can get the saves that keep the bench fired up, you’re doing your job.

Viktor Arvidsson – For sure, they’re huge. I can speak to that, playing with Pekka Rinne, he made saves like that from time to time and those bring you up on the bench, they make you believe. That was good.

Trevor Moore – Especially on their power play, they’ve been so dynamic and so effective. To get those big saves, we need those and Cam’s done that for us all year.

With Game 3 on the horizon, that’s what the Kings are in search of from Talbot. Make the big stops, keep the team in the game.

Big one tonight, Insiders! Should be rocking at Crypto for the first home playoff game of the season.