12/19 Preview – Full Skate Today + Phil(s Line)adelphia, Fiala 600, 2014 Draft Reunion

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (18-9-4) @ Philadelphia Flyers (14-14-4)
WHAT: 2024-25 Regular-Season Game
WHEN: Thursday, December 19 @ 4:30 PM Pacific
WHERE: Wells Fargo Center – Philadelphia, PA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: ESPN+ / Hulu – AUDIO – ESPN LA App – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings

TODAY’S MATCHUP: Three games left for the Kings before the holiday break, as the roadtrip continues this evening in the city of Brotherly Love.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings and Flyers split the season series in 2023-24, with each team winning away from home, including a 5-0 Los Angeles victory here in Philadelphia.

Forward Quinton Byfield led the way with four points last season against the Flyers, including a three-assist game in this building last November. Forward Adrian Kempe scored a goal in both games, while defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov had an assist in both games.

KINGS VITALS: The visitors held a full-team morning skate today, after keeping the majority of group off the ice yesterday.

Goaltender Darcy Kuemper was off the ice first after morning skate today, making him tonight’s projected starting goaltender for the Kings, in what would be his fourth start from five games on this trip. Kuemper has a career mark of 3-4-1 against the Flyers, with a .898 save percentage and a 3.16 goals-against average.

No reason to expect the 11/7 won’t continue today, with the Kings winning in convincing fashion in that alignment. An expected lineup, shown below –

Turcotte – Kopitar – Kempe
Foegele – Byfield – Jeannot
Fiala – Danault – Laferriere
Helenius – Thomas

Anderson – Gavrikov
Edmundson – Clarke
Moverare – Spence
Burroughs

Kuemper
Rittich

Forward Trevor Moore remains out of the lineup with an upper-body injury and will not play today against the Flyers.

Based on today’s skate, I’d expect the same configuration tonight for the Kings in Philadelphia, with 11 forwards and seven defensemen. The Kings have forward Andre Lee and defenseman Andreas Englund available, should they pursue any lineup changes, but not practicing yesterday was designed to keep higher-minute forwards fresh for the end of the trip. Wouldn’t be surprised to see 12/6 in Nashville or Washington – or both – but expecting 11/7 tonight.

FLYERS VITALS: Philadelphia has had an up and down season to date, with two and three game streaks, both winning and losing, making up their last 10 games, with a record of 5-4-1.

Per Jackie Spiegel of the Philadelphia Inquirer, here’s how the Flyers lined up last night in Detroit –

#Flyers lines vs. DET 🐙

Farabee-Couturier-Konecny
Tippett-Frost-Michkov
Foerster-Cates-Brink
Laughton-Poehling-Hathaway

York-Sanheim
Zamula-Ristolainen
Seeler-Drysdale

Ersson pic.twitter.com/zoWSg5pNtL

— Jackie Spiegel (@jackiespiegel93) December 18, 2024

The Kings will take on forward Matvei Michkov for the first time in the NHL, with the rookie forward playing in his first season in the league. Michkov leads all rookies this season in goals (11) and points (27), railing only Montreal’s Lane Hutson in assists.

Storyline Of The Day – Phil(s Line)adelphia
At the start of the season, Kevin Fiala, Phillip Danault and Alex Laferriere were all on different lines. While Fiala and Danault had played together at times in the past, it was typically with Trevor Moore as the third member, with Moore and Danault the primary pairing and Fiala the player joining in.

Right now, though, while it wasn’t the line on the original blueprint, it’s a line that is working really effectively.

“I think we’ve been playing actually really good together, especially the last few games here,” Fiala said. “We can’t get it in right now, consistently, that’s what we’re looking for, but we’re not going to give up, we’re going to keep going and hopefully get one tonight.”

Since Jim Hiller turned to those three players on the same unit, the results have been quite promising. When exactly that point was, I’m not 100 percent sure. The first time it was written down during line rushes was on November 29 in Anaheim, so that’s eight games ago. To use ten games as a round number, that line has controlled more than 69 percent of the shot attempts with those three on the ice together. Five goals for, just two against.

While the output hasn’t quite matched what they’ve put into it, those three players have controlled more than 70 percent of high-danger chances. It’s only a matter of time until those three players turn those looks into goals.

The Pittsburgh game was perhaps the best of the bunch. On a night when the Kings, overall, weren’t all that thrilled with their game, the Danault line was a driving factor, with 18 shot attempts for, compared to just three against and a 9-0 advantage in scoring chances. It was a really strong showing, helping to provide the Kings with a semblance of possession in an otherwise challenging night.

“Our most dangerous line by quite a margin,” Hiller said. “You’d like them to score, but they were doing the right things, gave us a chance. You always look for one line and the other night [in New York] it was 55’s line, I thought. It’s usually one line is going to try to drive you, everybody can’t be on every night and they were definitely our most dangerous.”

It wasn’t a perfect night, without getting one to go into the back of the net.

At 2-1, that line had the chance to make it 3-1 on a few occasions, perhaps none larger than a sequence where both Danault and Fiala didn’t get all on an attempt that ended up going through the crease and out the other side. You can point to those moments and chances not taken and everyone would agree. The numbers, though, typically even out in the long haul.

If these guys keep playing together, with Fiala’s playmaking abilities, Danault’s prowess around the crease and Laferriere’s emerging goalscoring abilities, you’d expect the ledger to flip, assuming they continue to play the way they have been.

“I think we’re definitely building a lot of chemistry there,” Laferriere said. “Any time you can get chances, it’s good. The puck isn’t going in, but we’re in the o-zone and we’re getting those chances, so it’s bound to go in at some point.”

3 To Watch For –
– The Kings were originally scheduled to practice yesterday in Philadelphia.

After the way the game went in Pittsburgh, Jim Hiller called an audible, opting only for a handful of players to skate, with five skaters in total on the ice with goaltender David Rittich.

Against the Penguins, the Kings went down to three lines for much of the night, with the fourth line not seeing as much time as they did in previous games. Expect that to change tonight, per Hiller, who said it had more to do with the gameflow, matching up against Crosby and Malkin, and nothing to do with how Samuel Helenius and Akil Thomas played specifically. Expect more balance here tonight.

“We’re coming to a 3-in-4 here real quick with lots of travel and I probably played some forwards [in Pittsburgh] more than I wanted to,” Hiller said. “Killer and Sammy didn’t play much, more on my decision, not the way that they played, just from the rotation with Crosby and Malkin, they’ll be getting more ice time [tonight].”

As such, the Kings held a full-team skate today, after most players didn’t touch the ice yesterday. Beginning a 3-in-4 with travel here this evening, energy is important.

Hiller added that he talks with those impacted, to gauge their energy levels and get a sense for how everyone is feeling. As such, he noted they could go to the 12/6 approach at the end of the trip, but for tonight, sounds like they’ll run it back 11/7.

Proof will be in the pudding tonight against the Flyers.

– Four members of the current LA Kings were drafted in this building – Kevin Fiala, Adrian Kempe, Andreas Englund and Warren Foegele. All part of the 2014 NHL Draft class and all attended the event here in Philadelphia.

Pretty rare you see four guys, drafted by four different teams in the same draft now all playing as teammates. That’s what we’ve got though.

Kempe was the only of those four players to be drafted by the Kings, the last pick in the first round in 2014, after the Kings won the Stanley Cup. For Fiala, he was the highest-selected of the group, by the Nashville Predators, 11th overall. A while ago, more than 10 years now, but still a special day for Fiala, and the others as well.

“It’s actually pretty cool, I talked to my parents yesterday, they were there too and they were like ‘oh do you remember the draft there’,” Fiala said. “It was 10 years ago, time flies, but still a special place for me, I mean it all started here. Looking forward to playing here.”

– On the Fiala front, Tuesday was his 600th career game played in the NHL, making him the 11th member of his draft class to reach that milestone.

“It’s a lot of fun to get to 600 games,” he said. “If you would have asked me as a little boy, I would’ve signed up for that right away, I would never believe that. I’m proud of myself, for sure, very happy.”

Fiala ranks eighth in his draft class in goals, assists and points, with 446 of the latter to his name. He’s 14 goals shy of 200 and with a strong finish to the season, could approach the 500-point mark by the end of the 2024-25 campaign.

Make that 💯💯💯💯💯💯 for Kev! @Yaamava | #MilestoneMoment pic.twitter.com/YWNXLpRzwF

— LA Kings (@LAKings) December 18, 2024

Kings at Flyers, tonight at Wells Fargo Center. National broadcast on ESPN+, so streaming only for this one, should be blackout free on that front in all markets.