Practice 3/14 – Kings Recap Washington Win + Lineup Notes, Hiller Quotes, Special Guest Joins Skate

A practice day, Insiders!

The LA Kings took to the ice this morning for around 30 minutes, one of the first full team skates we’ve seen here in recent times. With the way the schedule is shaking out here down the stretch, the balancing act between rest and practice time has seen the scales tipped towards the former.

Looking back, Wednesday was an optional practice while Monday was a team day off. The last time the practiced in full was Friday, March 7, the day of the NHL Trade Deadline. It was actually only seven days ago but man does it feel like it was twice that.

On the ice today was everyone minus defenseman Drew Doughty. Doughty has not practiced in between games over the past week or so, not taking optional practices or morning skates. Jim Hiller spoke on this at the start of the week, noting that we should expect to see maintenance days for Doughty going forward, and that has held true now over the first couple of practice opportunities since.

For today, here’s how the Kings aligned –

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

Anderson – (Johnston)
Gavrikov – Spence
Edmundson – Clarke
Moverare – Burroughs

Kuemper / Rittich

In Doughty’s place, during the small portion of practice that saw players work with lines and pairings, Assistant Coach Derik Johnston took rushes with defenseman Mikey Anderson to balance things out and prevent players from needing to take extra reps on the day in between games.

On Doughty, he is expected to play tomorrow and I’d continue to expect this to be a regular occurrence. He’s not just sitting at home during practice, he’s getting what he needs to be ready to go and until hearing otherwise, I’m not expecting that to change. With Doughty in place, expecting the Kings to align tomorrow how they did last night against Washington. 12 forwards and six defensemen. Darcy Kuemper will start in goal and away we go, as the Kings look to make it three-for-three on this homestand.

Before we move on too quickly, how about just a couple more thoughts on last night’s big win over Washington.

For Hiller’s part, he felt the game was very similar to the game played in Washington back in December. The Kings played so hard in that game without very much in the tank. They came up on the wrong side of a tight-checking game. Last night, similar approach, different results.

“That first game in Washington, I thought we played very well against them,” Hiller said. “It was at the end of that roadtrip, Phil didn’t play, we flew in from Nashville, we were on fumes and we went out and I thought we played them really well. Didn’t give them much like last night, but we just had less opportunities and didn’t generate on those opportunities. Last night was a similar game, but I thought we did create more and then we finished.”

From the players standpoint, guys were happy with the way the Kings executed. Kevin Fiala and Darcy Kuemper

Quinton Byfield – That’s the best team in the league and we kind of shut them down, on the penalty kill, everywhere on the ice. We were above all the guys, weren’t allowing them to make clean breakout passes across the ice, spread the ice around. We were just making it hard on them and that’s how we’re supposed to play, that’s how we want to play. Just shows how good we can be against those top players and top teams.

Tanner Jeannot – I think that’s what you have to do to have success this time of the year. If you have some guys taking the night off, usually teams are going to make you pay, especially the really good ones. I think recently here these past couple of games, we’ve been doing a really good job of sticking together as a team and doing the systems that the coaches lay out for us. We’ve been having success with it, so we’ve got to keep it going.

If you want the statistics to support it, Washington had just 11 shots on goal at 5-on-5, tied for the second fewest in a game so far this season. On the power play, despite ample opportunities, the Kings generally limited time and space against the NHL’s highest-scoring team in total. Good signs all around. The players felt it, the coaches felt it and just by watching that game, it was clear the Kings did exactly what they set out to do.

A big win. And now we move on.

Notes –
– So…..what’s changed?

The Washington win, if you go up and down with the results, would probably seem unfathomable after the loss in Chicago on March 3. Just 11 days ago. That’s how quickly things can change and why it’s important to remain as even keeled as you possibly can.

Jim Hiller’s best explanation –

“Like you do, over 82 games, I think we came off our game a little bit. We were playing at a high level through February and you just dip a little bit without even knowing it. You’re playing well, you’re playing well, you get comfortable and you dip and other teams – we caught Dallas in St Louis playing extremely well and now they’re a level higher than you. I think all we did was identify that and then just get us back up. [We didn’t fall] from a nine to a three, but maybe nine to a seven and a half and seven and a half wasn’t good enough. We had to get back up to nine again. I think that’s what we did, I think we got ourselves back up to our level. At some point, we’re going to fall off just, I just know that’s just how it works, so we’ll have to be on guard.”

– An interesting question today about his conversation with a veteran player like Trevor Lewis, who has played for the majority of the season but has found himself on the outside looking in over the last four games.

“It’s not an easy conversation, because you don’t have the career that he’s had by accepting that you’re somebody who can sit on the sidelines. You’re a fighter, you’re a competitor. Everybody who talks about Trevor Lewis, talks about that he is a competitor, he has will and especially him he won’t accept it. So, it’s not an easy conversation.”

One thing with Lewis is, though, that his character is so high that it would never be an issue. You also can’t just expect a competitive player to roll over and accept it. The Kings are rolling right now and the fourth line has been very effective. Going forward, we’ll see how things continue to go, but Hiller admitted it’s not easy to have those conversations for sure.

– Lastly, Insiders, if you were wondering who confirmed lineup and goaltender information for tomorrow, we were joined by a special guest throughout practice today.

Josh Mesa skated with the Kings this morning, as a part of the Make A Wish program. Josh is a 12-year-old Southern California kid and a roller hockey player who grew up loving the Kings, just like his grandfather did. Josh was diagnosed with cancer and has undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatment but is now in remission. Josh was a special guest at today’s practice, skating with the team and getting the chance to meet his favorite player, Anze Kopitar. Josh said after practice that he scored three goals during the skate…..sounds like he might be able to help a struggling offensive team if he can learn the defensive structure. He wore number 15 today, in honor of his birthday (January 5).

Josh joined us for Jim Hiller’s media availability as well and asked the first two questions of the day, with Hiller confirming to him that Darcy Kuemper would start tomorrow’s game with the same lineup expected. Future LA Kings Insider, if he’s not on the ice. Hiller said if it was a roller hockey game tomorrow, he’d make the lineup change right away, adding in a goalscorer.

Really special to have Josh as a part of the group today.