1/16 Preview – Kings focus on goalscoring + Helenius in, Laferriere out (upper-body), Edmundson on Return, Vancouv-Burr

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (24-12-5) @ Vancouver Canucks (19-14-10)
WHAT: 2024-25 Regular-Season Game
WHEN: Thursday, January 16 @ 7:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Rogers Arena – Vancouver, BC
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Fan Duel Sports Network – AUDIO – ESPN LA App – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The Kings are in Vancouver this evening for Game 4 of 5 on this roadtrip, squaring off against the Canucks for the second time this season.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Quinton Byfield and defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov scored when these teams met back in November, a 4-2 defeat at Crypto.com Arena.

Forward Trevor Moore, who had the primary assist on Gavrikov’s goal, has five points (3-2-5) over his last five games played against the Canucks.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held an optional morning skate today, following a full-team practice yesterday at Rogers Arena.

Goaltender Darcy Kuemper did not skate this morning, making him tonight’s projected goaltender. Kuemper has faced Vancouver more than any other team in the NHL throughout his career. He’s posted a record of 13-7-2, with a .921 save percentage and a 2.32 goals-against average.

Here’s how the Kings lined up yesterday, previewing what we could see tonight –

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

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

Kuemper
Rittich

The Kings will be without forward Alex Laferriere tonight due to an upper-body injury.

As such, looking at seeing a couple adjustments up front. Trevor Moore skated in Laferriere’s spot yesterday, alongside Phillip Danault and Kevin Fiala, while Tanner Jeannot moved into Moore’s spot with Quinton Byfield and Warren Foegele. Forward Samuel Helenius will check back in up front, per Jim Hiller, to fill the 11th forward spot vacated by Laferriere’s injury. Otherwise, appears to be status quo.

CANUCKS VITALS: Vancouver enters tonight’s game with just three wins from its last 13 games, though five of the ten losses have come in overtime (3-5-5).

Per Brendan Bachelor of Sportsnet 650, here’s how the Canucks lined up last time out against Winnipeg –

Projected #Canucks lines vs. @NHLJets

DeBrusk. Pettersson. Boeser.
Höglander. Miller. Garland.
Heinen. Suter. Sherwood.
PDG. Blueger. Lekkerimäki.

Hughes. Hronek.
Forbort. Myers.
Soucy. Juulsen.

🥅Lankinen🥅

5pm on @Sportsnet650 https://t.co/KAgpi3gWwj pic.twitter.com/V6gA1Ncssk

— Brendan Batchelor (@BatchHockey) January 15, 2025

The Canucks welcomed back defenseman Filip Hronek to the lineup on Tuesday in Winnipeg, his first game since November 27.

Vancouver forward Brock Boeser enters tonight’s game with 17 career goals from 21 games played against the Kings. Since Boeser entered the NHL in the 2016-17 season, no player has scored more goals against Los Angeles than Boeser.

Storyline Of The Day – Goals, Goals, Goals
Cue the Motley Crue.

In three games so far on this trip, the LA Kings have scored three goals. 2 in Winnipeg was enough to get the job done. One in Calgary and Edmonton combined wasn’t and the Kings now sit at 1-2-0 on the trip thus far.

Practice yesterday had a clear focus in mind. Jim Hiller said that Kings specifically designed yesterday’s skate to get the forwards touches on the puck in dangerous areas, trying to replicate scoring chances as best they can and up the confidence of those players in those situations. It’s never going to be a 1-for-1 translation, practice to game, but the Kings did what they could to, hopefully, get their team feeling good in the situations where they need to get goals.

“Attacking the net, bringing pucks there, arriving there, that’s the attack that I think about and we had lots of touches,” Hiller said of yesterday’s practice. “We’ve talked about this before, lots of 3-on-2’s, lots of play around the net. We scored some goals and hopefully guys got a chance to bury a couple and feel a little better.”

In Calgary, Kevin Fiala felt that the Kings had enough chances, they just didn’t convert. In that game, the Kings had 15 high-danger chances, tied for the eighth most they’ve had in a game this season. So, I’d be inclined to agree with Fiala.

Against the Oilers, he didn’t think the Kings generated enough. The metrics would call it a mid-tier game. Wasn’t an outlier in either direction. So, you could say the Kings need to generate more than they did on Tuesday. Or, you could say they just need to finish better.

For the most part, players have felt like it’s not a chances situation. It’s been the finishing. How the ups and downs go, sometimes, but confidence remains high in the room.

“I think we’ve had great chances and I know we haven’t scored, but sometimes it’s going to happen, it’s the way hockey goes,” forward Alex Turcotte said this morning. “Sometimes, you feel like you could score all of the time and everything’s going in, sometimes you feel like you’re fighting it. It’s only been two games and I think we’re still a really confident team and we know we’re going to start putting more pucks in than that.”

While practice on Wednesday was centered around getting those chances, it can still difficult to replicate game situations.

Comes back, for Hiller, to the notion that was stated at the beginning of the season.

I think the Kings did a good job of embracing the “getting uncomfortable” mantra and we saw a big step forward in those areas earlier the season. At the end of the day, while it’s not highlight-reel hockey, high-danger goals are the ones that are scored from right around the crease.

In Vancouver tonight, that’s the area of the ice that Hiller wants to see his team get back to.

“You want to do two things – you want to get a few more pucks in the direction of the net and you want to make sure our players are going to the net and in front of the goaltender, not standing off to the side,” Hiller detailed. “You’d like to think there’s some fancy formula, but there really isn’t. You’ve got to go to the net, you’ve got to get in front of the goalie and bring pucks there. You’ve got to bang in a lucky one and then usually things just change. It seems to be magical, and there’s not really a lot of magic in it.”

With Alex Laferriere out, a guy who excelled at getting into those areas earlier in the season, the Kings will need it from elsewhere in the lineup. Fiala acknowledged his production isn’t where it needs to be, but has felt the chances have come for his line with Phillip Danault. Both players feel their play has outweighed their production. With Trevor Moore expected to be the third member of that line, perhaps that trio reunited can spark all three.

Kings will need more than one tonight, for sure. See if practice makes perfect.

3 To Watch For –
– In Edmonton, the Kings welcomed back defenseman Joel Edmundson, who returned to the lineup on Monday after missing games in Winnipeg and Calgary.

Edmundson’s injury stemmed from that really scary fall on January 4 against Tampa Bay. He said that it felt like he was in the air for five seconds, just falling in slow motion.

“It was just a weird play, I was just trying to hold the blueline, caught the puck and next thing you know, my feet are above my head and my head’s on the ice,” Edmundson said. “It was a scary play, I’ve watched the replay and it could have been a lot worse, so two games isn’t the worst.”

Edmundson wasn’t exactly out for all that long. He played last on January 4 against Tampa Bay and returned nine days later, missing just two games with the game on January 8 postponed. Still, he credited the organization’s training staff and strength and conditioning coaches for having him ready, preparing the right workouts while he wasn’t playing games.

As such, he felt ready to go and said he “felt good” in his return to the lineup. He resumed, more or less, his regular workload, logging 19:57 against the Oilers, which is just 40 seconds below his season average. A 1-0 lead, instead of a deficit, and he’s probably over that total, so no restrictions on his usage.

“I thought he was really good,” Hiller said. “What he brings to us, just in poise, size, competitiveness around our net, it’s important for us. We missed him when he was out and I think you saw, when he gets back in there, just how difficult it is for them to get to the net. Just a really important player for us.”

Edmundson was back on the ice today with the Kings, in his usual role. Noted he just needed a few days to “take care of himself” and appears to be full systems going forward.

– Vancouv-Burr!

For Kings defenseman Kyle Burroughs, he’s back home. Burroughs is a Vancouver native and spent two seasons with the Canucks, appearing in 90 total games during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.

“Any chance you get to come back, not just against a former team but to play in front of friends and familt, it’s a lot of fun,” Burroughs said this morning.

Burroughs didn’t have the exact count, but he’s expecting a “decent amount” of friends and family at tonight’s game.

He said that, although he’s from the Vancouver area, those coming to the game tonight will be in their Kings gear. Said there might be a couple of “Burroughs 44 jerseys” floating around in the stands, most of his people will have Kings gear on for the game. Good little cheering section for the Kings on the road.

– Lastly, how about a little Drew Doughty update.

While we’re on the ice in Vancouver, let’s check in on the ice at TSPC 👀 pic.twitter.com/V8ncUTPIhI

— LA Kings (@LAKings) January 16, 2025

Skating on the ice by himself, will see if Doughty is set to progress back with the full group on Monday, when the Kings gather for morning skate in El Segundo, or Tuesday, the first team practice back in California.

Kings and Canucks, 7 PM puck drop before the Kings head to Seattle for the trip finale. Big one tonight, as the Kings push to even their record on the trip to date.