Practice 1/15 – Helenius Back With Kings, Laferriere out for tomorrow (upper-body injury) + Kings talk PP

Happy Wednesday, Insiders.

A recap here of what we’ve seen over the last couple days for the LA Kings.

Yesterday, the Kings held a partial-team practice. In total, four forwards and five defensemen hit the ice, along with goaltender David Rittich, for 30-40 minutes at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.

Not with the group was forward Samuel Helenius, who was assigned to AHL-Ontario earlier in the day. With the Reign in British Columbia as well, to take on Abbotsford, there was an opportunity to get Helenius a game with a bigger role, skating higher in the lineup, than he does with the Kings. He hadn’t played a game since January 1, so with the circumstances working out as they did, it made a lot of sense to get Helenius in last night.

“Really good opportunity since we’re already here,” Head Coach Jim Hiller said. “He hasn’t played a lot recently, so get him in some games and see how he does.”

Asked Hiller if there was anything the Kings were looking for from Helenius that has kept him out of the lineup, or that they would be looking for from him in a short AHL stint.

The short answer was no. Helenius came out when Trevor Moore and Trevor Lewis came back from injury. Tough on a player who, as Hiller said, has done what’s been asked of him, but veteran players shouldn’t lose their spots due to injury, either.

“We really like him, he’s played very well and he’s done everything we’ve asked,” Hiller added. “This was just was just a chance to get him some more ice time and he’ll be back in with us before too long.”

At 22, he has to regularly play games. Helenius can play in the NHL right now but he’s also still developing. Today, he was recalled back from the Reign and was on the ice for practice in Vancouver, skating with Lewis and Akil Thomas on the fourth line.

Personally, I’d like to see him get in with the Kings at the end of this trip, as he brings a size element to the fourth line that’s lacked without him when Tanner Jeannot plays higher in the lineup. If the Kings don’t see him in their top 11, though, it might be better to have him playing in the AHL and prepared for a recall when an opportunity to play arises.

Perhaps that opportunity comes tomorrow, with forward Alex Laferriere out for the game against the Canucks.

Laferriere did not practice today with an upper-body injury and will not play tomorrow, per Hiller. Expecting a further update later in the week.

Full skate for the @LAKings today.

No Alex Laferriere today, out with an upper-body injury. Won’t play tomorrow against Vancouver, should get a further update later in the week.

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) January 15, 2025

So, without Laferriere, here’s how the Kings lined up today in Vancouver –

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

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

Kuemper / Rittich

Jeannot moved back up with Quinton Byfield and Warren Foegele while Trevor Moore moved back with Kevin Fiala and Phillip Danault. Two lines we’ve seen before. 37/55/10 has been a pretty effective line this season so that makes a lot of sense. For 22/24/12, they were extremely effective last season and perhaps some time apart can reunite that chemistry for a team seeking more offense.

Expecting to see that Top-9 in place tomorrow and we’ll go from there.

On the rest of the group, TSN’s Darren Dreger reported yesterday that defenseman Drew Doughty is expected to join the Kings for practice next week in a non-contact jersey. Doughty has been skating on his own for a few weeks now, dating back to late-December. No formal update to share on Doughty, who is not with the team in Vancouver, but it would not be surprising to see him progressing towards that next step, which is practicing with the Kings once again.

The Kings only have one practice at home, on Tuesday, January 21, plus morning skates on the 20th and 22nd before the team heads back on the road. If Doughty has progressed to that point, he could potentially join the Kings on that trip, which begins in Columbus on January 25. Still a bit too soon to know there, but it’s really encouraging to see that being discussed.

Hold on that one for now and will share what I hear over the next couple days.

For today’s practice, the Kings worked a lot on offensive situations, both at 5-on-5 and on the power play. Will cover the 5-on-5 part tomorrow, but for today, let’s dive into the power play.

I’m going to take a different approach here.

The PP has not scored enough goals. Plain and simple. But what are the Kings trying to do to fix that? To evaluate that, let’s look at the best two-minute sequence the Kings have had in a while, which was their first of three power plays in Calgary. The Kings had nine shots on goal in that two-minute span, with the first unit specifically snapping the puck around as quickly and efficiently as we’ve seen it.

So, what went well on that power play that hasn’t gone well on the others? I asked three members of the top PP unit to detail what they liked about that chance specifically.

Kevin Fiala – What I remember is we moved it quickly, we moved it around, we shot it, we didn’t look for a better play. We just took the chances we had and retrieved the puck, made some plays again, shot it again, got the puck back, all this simple stuff. We’ve talked about it now so many times, and I think we did a good job.

Adrian Kempe – I think the attack mode was there. We started with the puck right away, everybody was looking to shoot the puck and when you do that, you get the chances and you get rebounds and all that kind of stuff. I think the thing against Calgary was, we were talking about it before, we’ve got to go back to shooting more. We’ll create chances from there and I think we did a really good job on that first one and then we had some issues getting into the zone after that.

Brandt Clarke – Just pace. I think we were just efficient, every puck was hitting sticks. It was early in the game, the ice was good, we were just really efficient. Obviously we didn’t score there and we wanted to keep that momentum going and we didn’t really do that, that was a little frustrating for all of us, but we know we have the talent to do that. We looked like a well-oiled unit right there and that wasn’t a fluke, that’s what we can do.

The words are the same right? Pace. Efficiency. Attack. Shots. Rebounds. Retrievals. Shooting Mentality.

That specific power play had all of those things and if the Kings do that every time, they will score. So, why haven’t we seen those things more regularly?

Kempe added that over the last couple months, the Kings haven’t had many power play chances. Actually, since December 1, they’re averaging 1.75 opportunities per game, the fewest in the NHL. The players notice that and Kempe has felt that when the Kings have gotten PP opportunities, they’ve tried to be too perfect, thinking they have to make the perfect play because they might not get another chance.

“Over the last couple months, we haven’t had that many power plays, so whenever you get the chance, you feel like maybe sometimes that you don’t want to take the shot because we’re just having one power play, we want to look for the best opportunity to score, and sometimes you don’t want to take those shots,” he detailed.

Too often it’s been one too many passes in search of that perfect, highlight-reel play. Hasn’t worked that way. Against the Flames, on that first power play, the Kings shot early and often. They got pucks into the slot and they attacked it. This season, the Kings rank last in the NHL in high-danger goals and high-danger shooting percentage on the power play. Although it’s not the way we are trained to think about power plays running effectively, the numbers say that the best power plays score from right around the crease. The pretty, one-timer goals aren’t high-danger chances, as they are graded. Sure those can be effective but the data shows that down and dirty goals, from right outside the crease, are still how the top PP’s are finding success. In looking at the teams that rank 1-5 in high-danger goals on the power play this season, four of them rank in the Top 7 in PP%. Get pucks to the dangerous areas, good things happen.

In total, the Kings have just three power-play goals from high-danger areas. They also rank 32nd in the league in attempts and goals from the slot. Feels like a theme and Jim Hiller spoke about using practice today to get players more touches in those dangerous areas, in all situations. Probably more so for 5-on-5, but today’s skate was specifically designed to create a ton of high-danger scoring chances for players to feel the puck in those zones, put the puck in the net and build confidence. That was today’s approach to trying to get the offensive side of the game back where it needs to be.

Clarke added that while they understand the production is not where it needs to be, the group is keeping spirits up, confidence in each other up. If they go the other way, it’s over. Right now, they’re sticking together, sticking with it and trying to right the ship.

“I think right now it’s just we want to see one go in, and then they’re all going to start going in,” he said. “I think if we get down on each other and we let the tough times get really tough, I think that’s going to ruin us all together, but we’re not doing that. We’re still positive, we’re trusting Brownie, our entries are good. [In Calgary] we were getting pucks to the net, we’re getting recoveries, so those are all the right things, that’s the checklist and we’re hitting it, but pucks aren’t going right now. We have the back half of the season turn it around and I hope we do that, and I think we will.”

Ultimately, proof will be in the pudding. While for us, watching the games, the negativity towards things that aren’t working comes with the territory, I do think it’s important that it doesn’t seep into the room for the guys executing. Confidence, execution, goalscoring are fickle things. The Kings will be on the PP in a critical situation again soon. Might not be tomorrow, might not be in Seattle, but it will come. When it does, we’ll see if the right approach can be the answer the Kings have been searching for.

Game tomorrow in Vancouver. Morning skate beforehand, expecting a light group, though we should get some clarity on lineup decisions with Laferriere out.