logo
Behind the Scenes

11/30 Preview – Kings Look For Elusive Third-Straight Win + Moore’s Status, Not Playing Down, Trust in Lee

114 Comments

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (13-8-3) vs. Ottawa Senators (10-11-1)
WHAT: 2024-25 Regular-Season Game
WHEN: Saturday, November 30 @ 4:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: KCAL – AUDIO – ESPN LA App – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The Kings are back home to complete a different looking back-to-back, hosting the Ottawa Senators at 4 PM after yesterday’s 12:30 puck drop in Anaheim.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Today’s game concludes the season series against the Senators, after the teams played a wild, 8-7 game in Ottawa back in October.

Forwards Kevin Fiala and Alex Laferriere each had two goals in their overtime defeat in Ottawa last month, while forward Anze Kopitar and defenseman Brandt Clarke each collected three assists. In total, 10 different Kings collected a point in that victory, five of whom tallied multiple points.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings did not hold a morning skate today, between the combination of an earlier than usual puck drop and the back-to-back.

With rookie Erik Portillo playing yesterday in Anaheim, look for goaltender David Rittich to get the nod between the pipes tonight for the Kings. Rittich has played against Ottawa nine times throughout his NHL career to date, bringing with him a record of 6-3-0, with a .914 save percentage and a 2.59 goals-against average.

No skate today, so sharing yesterday’s alignment below from the game in Anaheim –

UPDATE – Trevor Moore will return to the lineup today against Ottawa and should start the game with Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe on the top forward line. That naturally impacts Warren Foegele, who I’d expect to slot down somewhere else, and then we go from there. Look for the tweet after warmups for line combos. With Moore coming in that means someone will have to exit the lineup.

Should the Kings look to make any changes on the blueline, defensemen Andreas Englund and Kyle Burroughs are both available to play versus the Senators. Will look for a more defined up date on the injured trio of Caleb Jones, Darcy Kuemper and Arthur Kaliyev next week, with that group skating together yesterday in El Segundo.

SENATORS VITALS: After a five-game losing streak, Ottawa has now won its last two games, with victories over Calgary and San Jose.

Per TSN 1200, here’s how the Senators aligned during yesterday’s practice at Toyota Sports Performance Center –

Included in that lineup is forward Michael Amadio, a Kings draft pick, who has four goals from 10 career games played against his former club. Not included in that lineup is forward David Perron, who missed Wednesday’s game with an upper-body injury. Perron is tied for fourth with 10 goals against the Kings over the last five seasons and over the last 15 years, no player has scored more goals against the Kings than Perron.

Storyline Of The Day – Three To Get Ready
Of the 16 teams currently sitting in playoff spots, 15 of them have at least one winning streak of three games or more so far this season. The one team that hasn’t? The Los Angeles Kings.

“I didn’t know that, thanks for pointing that out,” Jim Hiller said, with a bit of a laugh, when told of the three wins statistic.

The Kings have won two games in a row on four separate occasions. They’ve yet to win three straight, which they will try and do today for the first time, coming off of victories over Winnipeg and Anaheim. When you think about it, being five games over .500 without a three-game winning streak is pretty impressive, powered by a 7-1-0 record coming off a regulation loss.

Perhaps no statistic better captures the start of the season for the Kings than the one above. When it’s been good, it’s been damn good. Skating the number-one team in the NHL straight out of the building good, like it was on Wednesday. It just hasn’t been that good consistently.

“We’ve kind of been treading water a little bit, good game, not so good game, good [game], so we really want to start stretching some wins together,” Hiller said.

The storyline of game-to-game performances has been covered to great length early in the season. Just this week, Monday in San Jose was a 7-2 defeat, after conceding five unanswered goals in the third period. Wednesday against Winnipeg was the most complete 60 minutes of the season, hands down. While the team’s performance dipped yesterday, with Hiller admitting he felt the Kings were outplayed by the Ducks, his team held on for a 2-1 victory on the road. You need those kinds of wins. Today, back on home ice, you’d like to see more of Wednesday’s team, though. That’s the standard the Kings have set.

“There’s a lot of pieces in [the Winnipeg] game that we can show going forward, that that’s how we have to do it and the mentality that we have to have,” Hiller said. “It’s a long season, it can’t be like that every night, it requires a lot of energy, but that’s definitely the way we want to look on most nights.”

For today’s game, the Kings have the Ottawa Senators in town. Odds have it that today’s game will be lower scoring than the last time these teams met, an 8-7 victory for the Senators at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa……though the Kings wouldn’t mind burying seven goals again. They certainly can’t concede eight and expect to get something from the game, though.

It’s time for the Kings to squash this statistic.

3 To Watch For –
– The Ottawa Senators are below the .500 mark.

Over the last three seasons, the Kings feasted against teams lower in the standings, powering the team’s qualification for the playoffs. This season, it’s been a mixed bag. Against teams below .500, the Kings have a record of 5-2-2. Better than the narrative suggests, but the Kings went 22-4-1 against teams below .500 last season, good for a .833 winning percentage.

Hiller was asked about the Kings “playing down” to their opposition at times this season.

“It’s an area that we have to address,” Hiller said. “This whole thing would be really easy if we as coaches just said hey, look at this, and it was all just fixed. We’re a bunch of humans playing a really, really hard game, where the puck bounces all over the place. It’s just trying to do it as consistently as possible, with as many players each night.”

With the chance to win three straight, and a seven-game roadtrip coming up next month, games like this are ones you want, even on the second half of a back-to-back.

– Welcome Back Andre Lee!

If you want any indication of what Hiller thinks of Lee, look at the usage of the forwards late in yesterday’s game. With the Kings leading 2-1, Lee had two shifts in the final three minutes of the game, including one inside the final minute of regulation, with the team trying to grind out two points in Anaheim. With a shortened bench and a one-goal lead, Lee was a player the Kings trusted to get the job done. And he did.

“He had a good game and he does that, that’s what he does, he takes pride in those moments, so we put him out there,” Hiller said.

Good sign of trust in a player who was recalled from the AHL earlier in the day.

– Lastly, here are the teams who occupied playoff spots at American Thanksgiving

East: TOR, FLA, TBL, CAR, WSH, NJD, NYR, BUF
West: WPG, MIN, DAL, VGK, CGY, VAN, LAK, COL

Over the last three seasons, 79 percent of the teams in a playoff spot on Thanksgiving have qualified for the ultimate tournament, on average somewhere between 12 and 13 of 16. It’s not an exact science though, with Buffalo and Colorado already passed by Philadelphia and Edmonton and. A long, long ways to go. Who you got from this field that might miss out?

Kings and Senators, as the Kings search for that elusive third straight win. Full coverage to follow from Crypto.com Arena later on today!

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.