3/17 Preview – Same Lineup Expected + Translating To The Road, Doughty’s Plan, Kuemper NHL 1st Star

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (36-20-9) @ Minnesota Wild (37-25-5)
WHAT: 2024-25 Regular-Season Game
WHEN: Monday, March 17 @ 5:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Xcel Energy Center – St. Paul, MN
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: FanDuel Sports Network – AUDIO – ESPN LA App – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The LA Kings begin a two-game trip this evening as they visit the Minnesota Wild to conclude the season series between the two teams.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings won the first two games this season against Minnesota, with wins both at home and on the road.

Forward Trevor Moore leads the Kings this season against Minnesota, with two goals and four points from the two matchups thus far. Moore, who had two assists when these teams met in St. Paul back in November, has 13 career points (6-7-13) against the Wild, his second most against any NHL opponent in his career.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held a full-team morning skate in advance of tonight’s game versus the Wild.

Look for goaltender Darcy Kuemper to be back in net this evening in what would be his fourth consecutive start overall. Kuemper, who played parts of five seasons in Minnesota at the start of his career, has a lifetime record of 5-6-1 against the Wild with a .905 save percentage and a 2.82 goals-against average.

Based on today’s skate, expecting the below alignment in tonight’s game versus Minnesota –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Spence
Edmundson – Clarke

Kuemper
Rittich

Should the above hold true, it would mark the sixth straight game for the Kings with the same alignement of 12 forwards and six defensemen. Should the Kings make a lineup change, forwards Trevor Lewis and Akil Thomas are available up front, while defensemen Kyle Burroughs and Jacob Moverare are options on the backend.

WILD VITALS: Minnesota has lost four of its last five games entering tonight’s action, most recently including a 5-1 defeat against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday.

Per Minnesota Wild PR, here’s how the hosts lined up last time out –

Projected line charts as the #mnwild hosts the St. Louis Blues tonight at @XcelEnergyCtr.

Puck drop now on @FanDuelSN_NOR and @KFAN1003. pic.twitter.com/Aj4uowEKov

— Minnesota Wild PR (@mnwildPR) March 16, 2025

Minnesota is currently without forwards Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson-Ek, with both players on injured reserve. Over the last five seasons, Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek are Minnesota’s two leading scorers against the Kings. Kaprizov has 52 points (23-29-52) from just 37 games played this season, Minnesota’s third-leading scorer despite missing 30 of his team’s 67 games played in total.

Storyline Of The Day – Carrying Momentum
We’ve ready this book before, haven’t we?

Very strong homestand. Momentum starts to build. As does the optimism of potentially obtaining something more in the regular-season standings than good, old Pacific 3.

Then, in the past, has come the road.

At the start of January, the Kings won four straight games at home and then followed it up with roadtrips of 2-3-0 and 1-4-0, sandwiched around two games back in Los Angeles. In late-February, the Kings posted a 4-0-2 homestand, with three games on either side of the 4 Nations break, before they went back on the road and didn’t collect a point from three games in the Midwest.

“We haven’t been happy with our road performances so far, where as I think our home performances have exceeded expectations,” defenseman Brandt Clarke said. “Especially recently, we’ve been rolling and if we can keep that going, that will lead to success [on the road].”

Now, the Kings are on a five-game winning streak, with four of those wins coming in Los Angeles and one in Vegas, arguably the most impressive road victory of the season. With that streak has come enhanced stakes at the most critical time of the year, as the Kings sit just one point out of a Top-2 seed in the Pacific Division and five points off the division lead with two games in hand on both Edmonton and Vegas. In case you didn’t know, the Kings lead NHL in points percentage at home at .833, with a 23-3-4 record at Crypto.com Arena. That points percentage would rank as the second-best mark of any team over the last 10 years if it were to hold up over the final 11 games on home ice. So, securing a top-two spot in the division carries an important advantage.

Right now, though, the points count the same on the road and staring the Kings down are two games in away buildings, beginning tonight in Minnesota. The Kings are just 13-17-5 on the road, though one of those 13 victories did come at Xcel Energy Center. They know, though, that they have to find a way to carry over some of their form at home into these road games. It’s time.

“The past is the past,” Jim Hiller said this morning. “We had a lousy road trip our last road trip, so we talked about it, we have to be ready to play. When you come off it, it’s a lot of work to get back on it. We’re on it now, whether we’re home or on the road, we can’t come off it. We’ve got a hungry team we know we’re going to be facing.”

Tonight’s game against the Wild and Thursday’s game versus Chicago means four points available for a team that will need to collect every one possible.

Clarke added that there aren’t any differences to how the Kings are approaching home games versus road games. He said it’s the “same attitude in the dressing room” with the same mentality, but the results just haven’t gone favorably.

Drew Doughty didn’t have a precise answer either and maybe there isn’t one, but he pointed to the way the Kings need to play to have success.

“We just have to have the same mentality, we play much better defensively at home, I think that’s the biggest point for me,” he said. “When we get on the road, we get a little too loose and we’re giving up way too many goals, so we can’t win games. Get back to better defense.”

I suppose, at the end of the day, it’ll come down to the play on the ice. Can’t go back and changes the first 35 games, but with six more to play, the Kings can still get what they need from their final six on the road, as they continue the chase to not make Game 83 become their next road test.

3 To Watch For –
– On Doughty, he was once again the only player not to take the ice for today’s morning skate.

Doughty hasn’t taken very many practices or morning skates over the last couple of weeks. These are excused absences, obviously, and he is on a carefully monitored plan between himself, Hiller and the Kings medical/training staffs. He missed the one game in March but has played each night since, though he’s been very limited in the days between, as all parties try to ensure he’s at his best when the puck drops for the game.

“This injury is going to be a constant thing all year, the rest is important,” he said. “It sucks not practicing with the guys, but if it’s going to make me feel better for the games, it’s obviously the right decision. No point in putting stress on my ankle when we’ve got a game tonight. I think the training staff has done a great job and we’re finding a way to make it feel better.”

As Doughty pointed out, this is a planned thing. The Kings have worked on creating a plan for Doughty with regards to games versus practices and morning skates.

Jim Hiller confirmed that there is a “plan in place” for Doughty, with he, Drew and the training staff all on the same page.

“We want the best out of him for the games, that’s most important,” Hiller added. “Yeah, he could practice, we understand that, but taking the big picture into account, we’ll just make sure he’s fresh for the games.”

So, while he’s managing things, him not taking a morning skate isn’t a concern right now for all involved.

– A nice honor this morning for Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper, who was selected as the NHL’s First Star of the Week for the week that just ended.

Kuemper allowed just one goal across three starts, as he posted shutout victories over Washington and Nashville, in addition to allowing just one goal in a 4-1 victory over the New York Islanders, making 33 saves in total in that game. In total, Kuemper made 78 saves on 79 shots against, as he posted a 3-0-0 record with, again, two shutouts. About as good as you could ask for from your goaltender.

Wrote a more in-depth story on Kuemper’s performance of late – and his season as a whole – yesterday, including several quotes from Head Coach Jim Hiller and Kuemper’s teammates, who have expressed confidence when playing in front of him. Linking that story HERE.

“He’s just been so good for us and really consistent, I think that’s the other part of it,” Hiller said of Kuemper. “Goalies, like teams, can go up and down for whatever reason and he’s just maintained a pretty consistent level for us. I think that’s really helped settle us down in the bad times and obviously ride the good times.”

– Lastly, forward Quinton Byfield enters tonight’s game on a six-game goal streak, the longest, by far, of his career.

Jim Hiller wouldn’t want this in written form, joking that “we’re talking about Fight Club” when referencing Byfield’s current streak. That’s against the rules of said club, isn’t it.

It’s hard not to talk about it though, especially coming off a game when even a 1-0 score couldn’t keep Byfield from finding the back of the net. He buried his third overtime game-winning goal of the season in the win over Nashville, keeping his streak alive.

Per LA Kings PR – Byfield is just the fourth different skater in LA Kings history to record a goal streak of at least six games at age 22 or younger, and the first to do so since Luc Robitaille (10-9=19) in the 1987-88 campaign.

Here’s to making it a lucky number 7 tonight.

Kings and Wild, 5 PM Pacific as a quick, two-game set on the road kicks off this evening. More to come from Minnesota, as the Kings face a Wild team that should be desperate for points in the Central Division.