Practice 11/1 – Alignment & Schedule + Hiller on Turcotte, Defensemen & Akil Thomas has his “pop” back

It’s been a strange start to the season for the Kings. It feels like we’re continually waiting until Friday every week to just have a normal practice day.

The last two weeks have pretty much been the same and the next two weeks will be similar in some ways as well. The Kings have traveled on Monday to play away on Tuesday this and last week. This week had the Kings play on Wednesday, off Thursday, while last week was the inverse, with an off-day on Wednesday and the home opener on Thursday. Both weeks, Friday was the first practice day at home that didn’t come before a flight, as was the case on consecutive Mondays.

It’s not all that crazy, just feels different than past seasons, I suppose. And it isn ‘t really going to change a heck of a lot, either.

Here’s the upcoming schedule.

11/2 – Home vs. Chicago, Afternoon Game, No Morning Skate
11/3 – Fly to Nashville, No Practice
11/4 – Kings @ Predators
11/5 – Kings @ Wild
11/6 – Team Day Off
11/7 – Kings vs. Canucks
11/8 – Kings Return To Practice, on Friday once again.

The following week will be the same, actually, with away games in Calgary and Colorado and the Kings practicing here at home on Friday, November 15. As they will on Friday 11/22. If you want to watch the Kings practice, here’s your typed out advertisement – come down the El Segundo on a Friday.

There’s a bit of a breather coming up, with just one game in six days, once we hit the middle of the month and get past a pair of two-game trips. It’s not any more hectic than past seasons, it’s just a little bit different. Thus ends my rambling for the day.

As for today’s skate, the Kings hit the ice with the following alignment –

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

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

Kuemper / Rittich

Lines were the same as we saw against Vegas on Wednesday, the most complete performance the Kings have delivered so far this season. With that in mind, I wouldn’t anticipate them changing things up, though Jim Hiller has said that it’s not a set in stone thing for him to keep lineups the same off a win, though he typically does go that route.

Up front, Hiller highlighted the play of Alex Turcotte last game, fitting the Kopitar/Kempe pairing like a glove.

Perhaps the beauty of it is how well Turcotte played his own game, while slotting in with those guys. He admitted that perhaps earlier in his career, he might have deferred more than he did. But, on Wednesday, he played Alex Turcotte’s game. That’s important. Hiller felt similarly and highlighted how well he fit onto that line against the Golden Knights.

“I thought that Turcs complemented Kopi and Juice as well as anybody has this year for that one particular game,” he said. “We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but he was a perfect compliment. He forechecked quick, he drove the middle on Juice’s goal, he cut inside, putting pressure down the middle, he was at the net for some of the plays that were made on point shots, he made some plays under the goal line to keep pucks alive, he did exactly what he needed to do to compliment those two for that night.”

In terms of the defensemen, the Kings have shown a willingness to move pairings around and swap out, generally speaking, the sixth defenseman in the alignment.

At this point, the Kings have five defensemen who should feature every night – Anderson, Clarke, Edmundson, Gavrikov and Spence.

The Kings like Edmundson/Clarke as a pairing, while Anderson and Gavrikov have led the group early in the season, probably at their best playing together, which the splits would support. After the early-season scratch in Toronto, Spence has looked much more like himself, regardless of who he is paired with.

Kyle Burroughs, Andreas Englund and Caleb Jones have all occupied that sixth spot at various times and all three offer a different look. Englund is the bruiser, the strong, physical defenseman, while Jones is the puck mover, the smooth passer who gets pucks up ice and skates well. Burroughs is probably more of a hybrid, plus he shoots right, so it makes more sense in games the Kings want to break up Anderson and Gavrikov. Here is Hiller’s assessment from earlier today –

“We want to get everybody in and everybody part of it, we feel like we’ve got eight defensemen who can play in the NHL, so that’s easy. So, when you’re one of those guys, and now all of a sudden you’re sitting out for two or three weeks, it’s ‘what’s going on, I’m an NHL defenseman, so I need to be in there playing games,’ and we don’t want to leave anybody out for too long, based on that. It can happen, no doubt, though. Then, you have a big, strong team like Vegas, who goes to the net hard and leads the league in goals from the blue paint area, what type of defenseman are you going to put in for that game? Again, these are just all just variables that are being considered, and then there’s gut feel, there’s numbers that you look at and different things, who the partner is going to be, left shots, right shots, you go on and on, but it’s a discussion that has to happen.”

I’d also like to highlight Akil Thomas, who I would expect to retain his place in the lineup tomorrow afternoon.

Night 1 for Thomas in San Jose went well.

Even as his role changed at the last minute, Thomas delivered a really strong performance against the Sharks, scoring in his season debut as he skated on a line with Phillip Danault and Trevor Moore.

Hiller has referenced a few times now that Thomas didn’t have his best showing during camp. It cost him a spot in the Opening Night lineup, something we all expected him to be a part of, and the Kings opted for the same 12 forwards in each of their first nine games. The time away, in Thomas’ own words, really helped to build his conditioning and his skating and both player and coach felt that his pace improved as a result.

“I thought he was skating quite a bit better than in preseason, he’s spent a lot of time skating over the past month, as you have to when you’re not playing every night, you usually skate harder. You actually end up probably in better shape and I thought he got his skating legs, so good start for him.”

Thomas spoke about using extra skates, which are a part of the life of a player not playing, the right way, taking ownership of them and improving his skating as a result. That was important. In Night 1, versus San Jose, Thomas certainly looked like a player who had taken those skates to heart.

Then came Night 2 versus Vegas, as the role changed once again.

With Kevin Fiala returning to his usual spot, Thomas moved onto the fourth line, skating with Trevor Lewis and Tanner Jeannot. The Kings, as a team, delivered their best showing of the season overall and Thomas proved to be a good fit in the spot he was played in.

“Really good again, I liked that line again too, with Lewie and Jeannot, those guys had chances, they moved the puck, “He’s really done a nice job. It’s almost like when he came up last year, that’s what he looks like. He didn’t look like that at the beginning of this year for whatever reason, I don’t know what it was. He didn’t have the same pop, but he’s got it back.”

There’s obviously been a lot of chatter on why it took until Tuesday to get Thomas into the lineup. I think the answers are there, but what matters now is seeing him stay in. When he plays his game effectively, there is no question that he is one of the best 12 forwards on the Kings. Despite his camp, I was surprised it took this long to get him in, because he is definitely a regular on this team. Now, he’s had two games to show that and he’s passed the test twice. With the versatility to play around the lineup a bit, and tools that differentiate him from others. He’s past training camp and hopefully it’s time to see the extended run of games we all expected coming in.

Early game tomorrow, Insiders, so no morning skate. Tomorrow’s game preview will take a look at what I believe is the million-dollar word – consistency. The Vegas game was excellent and now it’s time to show that it can be the norm, not the outlier.