“They Love Phil Here” – Teammates Talk Danault in QC + “Phase 2” of Training Camp, Kopitar on Injuries

Quebec City – Phillip Danault Country.

Victoriaville, QC is where Danault was born and spent the bulk of his junior career, about a 90-minute drive from Quebec City. From the reactions he’s received here, and the smiles on his teammates faces when talking about how special these games are for Danault, it might as well be 90 seconds away.

Seeing @LAKings players smile when asked about how much this trip means for Phil Danault told the whole story today.

The boys are so excited for him.

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) October 2, 2024

For forward Quinton Byfield, he knew what to expect coming in.

Byfield was up in Quebec City over the summer to play in Danault’s charity golf tournament. After experiencing it then, it was simply more of the same today.

“They love Phil here,” Byfield said of his teammate. “I came to his charity tournament this summer and he’s the man around town. Even on the ice this morning, me and Phil went on early and you could hear in the crowd, ‘oh it’s Phil’ and everyone was clapping. He’s the man around here and rightfully so.”

For Danault’s longtime linemate Trevor Moore, he also knew a bit of what was coming.

Danault and Moore have been linemates and friends for the better part of Danault’s time as a Kings. When Moore and his wife, Monique, came for a summer visit a couple of years back, he became familiar with Quebec City…at least a little bit. Today, he got a real taste of just how much this area appreciates his centerman.

“I came here with Phil a couple years ago in the summer, we came out, my wife and I, to visit them so it’s cool to see his neck of the woods and see how passionate everyone is about Phil here,” Moore said. “I know he’s got a bunch of people coming to the games too, so it’s cool.”

Kevin Fiala and Anze Kopitar spoke about their excitement for Danault.

As Fiala put it perhaps best, “two games back home, who wouldn’t want that……very happy for him, very excited for him.”

Kopitar joked that Danault has been talking in the room about the Quebec City experience for a long time now. And it’s hard to blame him. It’s not everyday that a player gets the chance to play at home. Danault has that opportunity and Kopitar gets fully how special that will be.

“It’s going to be great, he’s been talking about this for a long time, so there’s no shortage of excitement,” Kopitar said. “I’m sure he’s going to have a lot of family at the game and everything, and this is going to feel a little extra special to him, most likely not like an exhibition game. So it’ll be really cool to see, even from inside the locker room, how excited he gets.”

Quebec City – The Land that Phil Danault built. Has a nice ring to it. Expecting Danault in the lineup

Bonjour 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/sU4wxim02E

— LA Kings (@LAKings) October 2, 2024

As far as today was concerned for the rest of the traveling party, the Kings hit the ice at Videotron Centre in Quebec City.

The Kings skated today for right around an hour, for what could be one of their final hard practices of the preseason. A lot of work on certain areas, including special teams, as the tuning up process for the regular season continues. Today’s skate saw the following alignment, consisting of 15 forwards, eight defensemen and three goaltenders.

Laferriere – Kopitar – Kempe
Jeannot – Danault – Moore
Fiala – Byfield – Foegele
Thomas – Turcotte – Lewis
Lee – Studnicka – Fagemo

Anderson – Spence
Gavrikov – Burroughs
Edmundson – Clarke
Englund – Jones

Kuemper / Rittich / Copley

Jim Hiller referred to today as “Phase 2” of training camp.

Phase 1 was the portion of camp spent in Los Angeles, including four exhibition games played on the West Coast, more or less. That portion of camp had 60 players at one point and even as of practice last week, the Kings were split into two groups of players, with groups changing from day-to-day. Those days are important, certainly, but perhaps more so for those who are now playing in the AHL or the OHL – great experience for those younger players.

Now, with the roster narrowed down, the Kings are on to Phase two.

Phase two is looking at these games for preparation, as games that should be as close to mimicking a regular-season game as possible.

“We’ve kind of had two phases of our training camp – we had the first phase back in LA, we felt like we had a pretty good start, but it’s always good to get on the road, especially with new players,” Hiller said. “It’s been a different preseason. We move into, like I said, phase two, so we’re looking at it a little bit more like an 84-game season, because we don’t play, I think until October 10, I think we start in Buffalo. So, we got to use these two games to really prepare our team, the team that we believe is going to be very close to our starting lineup in Buffalo. So you’ll see it might be the team that plays in Buffalo, if not, maybe one or two players will change.”

With that, I’d expect to see a pretty loaded Kings group tomorrow, especially at the top. With players still fighting for jobs towards the bottom of the roster, those players could get one more look as well to show what they can do, but the Kings are expecting to dress close to a full-strength lineup over the two games in Quebec City.

Kopitar Talks Preseason Injuries
Look, the Drew Doughty injury has people talking.

As mentioned today, injuries to star players such as Doughty with the Kings, Artemi Panarin in New York and Patrik Laine in Montreal introduce the question of how much should star players play in the preseason. In the NHL, teams routinely hold starters out of action for an entire preseason to prevent the risk of injury. Does it perhaps, though, make players more susceptible to injury when the intensity ramps up during the regular season?

Perhaps the most important voice in the conversation is that of a star player himself.

Anze Kopitar was asked about it today. He’s played in just one exhibition game to date, in Ontario on Saturday, but is expected to be in the lineup both tomorrow and Saturday to finish where he usually does, right around three exhibition games. For him, these games are essential to being ready to go for Game 1 of the regular season.

“Obviously, as we’ve seen this year, it’s a fine line,” Kopitar said. “For me personally, I would definitely want to play exhibition games for sure. There’s no way I can go without playing any games and jump into the season opener, it’s just not the type of body that I have and it’s just the mind and the timing on the ice that you do get with exhibition games. So, are you going to put yourself in risky situations, probably not, and sometimes you’re going to hear about it from the coach, why you didn’t block that shot and everything, but, sometimes letting one go, it’s not all that bad. I mean, there’s been seasons with no preseason in the past with no injuries and we didn’t talk about this at all. It’s just been very, very bad luck, especially for our team too, we lost a big, big piece, obviously, in Drew, but we’ve got to look ahead. There’s going to be guys that are going to need to step up and pull a little bit more weight because he is out.”

Jim Hiller was inclined to agree.

“If Kopi was not to play a game for a month and then jump into an NHL game, we might be putting him at more jeopardy, so that’s just the risk you’re going to have to take to get your body, your mind, back up to the speed and get going when it gets for real, because, we know it goes even at a higher level once the regular season starts,” Hiller said. “So, I don’t think there’s much we can do about it, just kind of unfortunate and this year, they really have piled up, so I can understand why it’s a topic.”

It’s a valid question, for sure. Star players missing games that matter as a result of games that don’t, in terms of the standings, is not ideal for anyone. At least for Kopitar, the risk of playing in those games outweighs the risk of sitting them out.

That’s all for today, Insiders.

Will have full game-day coverage tomorrow as the team hits the ice to take on Boston in preseason game five of six.