3/8 Preview – 12/6 Expected + Lineup Thoughts & Notes on Kuzmenko, Helenius, Portillo

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (31-20-9) vs. St. Louis Blues (31-27-6)
WHAT: 2024-25 Regular-Season Game
WHEN: Saturday, March 8 @ 5:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: FanDuel Sports Network – AUDIO – ESPN LA App – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The Kings look to finally solve the St. Louis Blues, as the two teams square off tonight for the third time in eight days.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings dropped the first two games of the mini series with the Blues falling 4-1 in St. Louis and 3-2 in a shootout at home on Wednesday.

Kings forward Kevin Fiala leads the way in the season series with a goal and an assist over the two games played. While he has yet to play against the Blues as a member of the Kings, newly acquired forward Andrei Kuzmenko has five goals and six points from six career games played versus St. Louis.

KINGS VITALS: With the 5 PM game tonight, the Kings did not hold a morning skate in advance of the game with the Blues.

Without the skate, it’s unclear who will get the start in net tonight against St. Louis. With the back-to-back, I’d expect to see both goaltenders start once this weekend. Should the Kings turn back to Darcy Kuemper, he made 28 saves on 30 shots on Wednesday against this team, as the Kings fell in a shootout. Should they go with David Rittich, he made 30 saves on 34 shots in defeat in St. Louis.

If I was a betting man, I’d say Kuemper tonight, but strictly a guess until Jim Hiller addresses the media at Crypto.com Arena later on today.

For reference, here’s how the Kings lined up at practice yesterday –

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

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

Expecting at least two changes tonight. First things first, the Kings are likely to insert Jordan Spence on the blueline, in place of Jacob Moverare, while reverting back to the defensive pairings we expected back in training camp. The Kings will go with 12 forwards and 6 defensemen tonight, with Jacob Moverare and Kyle Burroughs out.

Up front, two variables in play here. One is the arrival of forward Andrei Kuzmenko, who got to Los Angeles last night and assuming all goes according to plan today, should play in tonight’s game. Second is forward Samuel Helenius, who was recalled in advance of tonight’s game from the Ontario Reign.

From the above alignment, expecting Akil Thomas to be out, but that leaves one additional decision to be made. More on that below.

BLUES VITALS: St. Louis continued its strong run of late, defeating the Anaheim Ducks 4-3 yesterday evening at Honda Center.

Per Matthew DeFranks of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, here’s how the visitors lined up in last night’s game –

Blues during warmup in Anaheim:
Neighbours-Thomas-Buchnevich
Holloway-Schenn-Kyrou
Joseph-Sundqvist-Bolduc
Toropchenko-Faksa-Walker

Fowler-Leddy
Broberg-Faulk
Suter-Tucker

Binnington
Hofer

— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) March 8, 2025

No team in the NHL has been better since the 4 Nations break than St. Louis, which has collected a league-leading 13 points in that span, courtesy of a 6-1-1 record. In that span, three Blues forwards have posted point-per-game or better totals, led by ten points from Robert Thomas (4-6-10).

Storyline Of The Day – Lineup Thoughts
Okay. First things first, expecting Andrei Kuzmenko to be here and be available. He arrived in Los Angeles last night and went through his meetings with the coaching staff this morning to hopefully provide a crash course on all things Kings, as General Manager Rob Blake alluded to yesterday afternoon. Not that he’ll retain much of it, considering his whirlwind of a 24 hours, but it’ll be provided.

“I’ve been in this situation and you listen for about 30 seconds and you go out and hopefully your instincts take over,” Blake said. “There will be a constant teaching from now until the end of the season, but I know they’ll sit down and go over every system.”

For Kuzmenko, he is a right-shot winger who has spent much of his time in the NHL playing left wing, which is an interesting fit with the Kings. The right-shot element, for me, is most important playing on the power play, where Kuzmenko has plenty of experience playing down low and in front of the net. At 5-on-5, it presents an interesting question.

The natural first thought would be to try him with Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe. Kempe is a left-shot forward who prefers the right wing, which mimics the line Kuzmenko was most successful on in Vancouver, with Elias Pettersson and Ilya Mikheyev, two left-handed forwards. Playing with Quinton Byfield and Kevin Fiala could also make some sense, with Alex Laferriere having experience with Kopitar and Kempe as well. With Kuzmenko’s offensive focus and the line centered by Phillip Danault deployed often in a shutdown role, I wouldn’t see that as a fit as things currently stand, even if those two might click well in a different role.

I’d also say that where we see Kuzmenko deployed on Night 1 isn’t permanent. I could see Jim Hiller and the staff trying him in different places to determine the best fit. For tonight, considering his hectic day, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in a reduced role either as he gets up to speed. If he isn’t on a power play he doesn’t know right away or isn’t in the top six right away, it’s not a cause for concern for me. If those things don’t develop, yeah, there’s concern. But even if he say starts on the fourth line, which isn’t what I’m expecting, it could simply be to ease him in as he gets comfortable here.

The trickle-down effect would be in play here if Kuzmenko does enter into the top nine and it could mean that a player like Alex Turcotte moves onto the fourth line. Turcotte doesn’t have the size you might like in a fourth-line player but he has the work ethic, the hustle and the willingness to go into dirty areas. If you put him alongside say Tanner Jeannot and Samuel Helenius, who was recalled this morning, the size is less of a factor and that could be a very effective fourth line.

Without a skate today, I don’t have a firm lineup for tonight. But based on what we know, here’s my best guess.

96 – 11 – 9
37 – 24 – 12
22 – 55 – 14
10 – 79 – 15

44 – 8
84 – 21
6 – 92

With Kuzmenko acquired and Helenius recalled, that leaves the Kings in total with 14 forwards, eight defensemen and two goaltenders. Since we are beyond the NHL trade deadline, teams can now exceed the 23-player roster limit in place for much of the season, as long as they are cap compliant. The Kings are, with Helenius and Kuzmenko in, so I would expect to see them proceed with 24 players for the rest of the way forward. The Kings believe Helenius has merited some time here down the stretch and my thought is they didn’t hold him out last night with Ontario not to play him today.

Therefore, expecting the above and we’ll see how it goes from there.

3 To Watch For –
– One more on Kuzmenko. He will wear number 96 for the Kings, becoming the first player in franchise history to wear those digits.

The first 9️⃣6️⃣ in Kings history! pic.twitter.com/M5eB94J3sJ

— LA Kings (@LAKings) March 8, 2025

Kuzmenko joins Brandt Clarke as players in the 90’s with the Kings right now. Those are two of just seven players in team history to wear a number in the 90’s. Wayne Gretzky obviously wore 99. Jeremy Roenick had 97, while Ryan Smyth had 94, Rick Tocchet had 92 and Carl Grundstrom had 91.

Expecting to speak with Kuzmenko after the game tonight, which would be his first with the Kings assuming that all goes according to plan.

– As a team tonight, the Kings have to get back on track. Been saying that for a few of these in a row.

Wednesday was better and they collected a point, but it was not playoff-caliber hockey, as the losing streak extended to five games. In that stretch, the three games on the road were all lopsided defeats that saw the Kings get away from what made them successful early in the season.

Defenseman Drew Doughty pointed to the team needing to execute as intended. The Kings are a structured team and a defensive team. No secrets there. When they get away from those things and go off-script, Doughty believes it lessens the whole.

“Playing our structure properly, not getting away from it and continuing to do the same things over and over, the right way, so we’re predictable to each other,” he said. “Any time even one guy goes off page, it hurts the team, so we need to stick to our gameplan and get hot. The most important thing is getting hot on a playoff stretch.”

Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov pointed to similar areas, noting that in his mind, it’s not about changing fundamental things that are in place, but rather about executing what’s there the way the Kings have for most of the season.

“We’ve given up some PK goals and just the structure and details, we’ve got to focus on that, doing them more sharp,” he said. “We’re not going to change much. We have confidence in who we are and we’ve got to just keep building on that and play how we played before.”

Talk is cheap, right? Time to go out and get a big result to snap the skid.

– Lastly, one additional note for the Ontario Reign, on top of Andre Lee’s two-year contract extension announced earlier this morning.

Goaltender Erik Portillo remains out of the lineup due to injury and is expected to be out for a “few more weeks” still. Portillo hasn’t played since February 17 and we knew he was injured. Just didn’t know the extent. From General Manager Rob Blake, the injury has persisted a little bit longer than originally expected. So, Pheonix Copley remains the number-one option in Ontario for now and would be the first recall should the Kings get into that position at any time here.

Kings and Blues, 5 PM puck drop on home ice, before the flight to Vegas to complete the back-to-back set.