10/18 Preview – Into The Eye of the Hurricane + Projected Lineups, Goals Against, Kuemper Update

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (1-3-1) vs. Carolina Hurricanes (4-0-0)
WHAT: 2025 Regular-Season Game 6/82
WHEN: Saturday, October 18 @ 6:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: FanDuel Sports Network – AUDIO – ESPN LA App & LA Kings App – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The Kings return to the ice this evening to conclude a two-game homestand against the league-leading Carolina Hurricanes.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forwards Kevin Fiala (3-1-4) and Quinton Byfield (1-3-4) led the Kings in scoring last season versus the Hurricanes. Fiala’s three goals were a team-high and he collected multiple points in both matchups last season against Carolina. In total, since he’s joined the Kings, Fiala has collected eight points (4-4-8) from six games played against Carolina as a member of the Kings.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings will make a couple of lineup changes tonight up front, after dropping their third straight game on Thursday versus Pittsburgh.

Unclear on tonight’s projected starting goaltender. Expecting it to be Anton Forsberg, who played three games with Carolina during the 2019-20 regular season, but unconfirmed. Forsberg brings a lifetime record of 3-4-0 against his former club, with a .901 save percentage and a 3.59 goals-against average. Should the Kings turn to Pheonix Copley,

The Kings held a highly-optional morning skate today, following a full-team practice day yesterday, so sharing yesterday’s lines below –

Kuzmenko – Laferriere – Kempe
Fiala – Byfield – Armia
Foegele – Danault – Moore
Malott – Helenius – Turcotte

Dumoulin – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Anderson – Ceci

Forsberg
Copley

With forward Anze Kopitar now out on a week-to-week basis after he missed yesterday’s game with a foot injury, look for Alex Laferriere to play center tonight, detailed more HERE, with the lineup shuffled a bit around that off of the defeat on Thursday against Pittsburgh. Defenseman Jacob Moverare is the only healthy extra should the Kings look to make any additional changes.

HURRICANES VITALS: Carolina is the last remaining unbeaten team in the NHL, entering tonight’s game with a 4-0-0 record.

Per Walt Ruff of CarolinaHurricanes.com, here’s how the visitors lined up on Thursday in Anaheim –

The #Canes during warmups in Anaheim –

Ehlers – Aho – Jarvis
Hall – Stankoven – Blake
Carrier – Staal – Martinook
Svechnikov – Jankowski – Robinson

Miller – Walker
Nikishin – Gostisbehere
Reilly – Chatfield

Andersen
[Backup: Bussi] pic.twitter.com/qLnF6sbrnQ

— Walt Ruff (@WaltRuff) October 17, 2025

Leading the NHL in points this season amongst defensemen? Colorado’s Cale Makar and Carolina’s Shayne Gostisbehere. Through four games played, no blueliner in the NHL has more points than Gostisbehere, who has collected seven (1-6-7). His +9 rating is the best mark in the NHL among all skaters, as a part of a strong start to the season at both ends of the ice.

Storyline Of The Day – Entering The Eye of The Hurricane
Each of the last two seasons, when facing a point of adversity, the LA Kings have found themselves facing the Carolina Hurricanes.

Last year, on February 1, after a disastrous January, the Kings were in Carolina for Game 5 of a five-game trip, having already lost the first four games. The Kings went in and came away with a 4-2 victory. In the 2023-24 season, the Kings had lost eight straight games before they picked up a 5-2 victory in Raleigh.

Those games were a…….Hurricane of a situation for the Kings. You might not feel it from the comments, but things are not quite as dire this time around.

Still, the Kings are 1-3-1 to begin a season which management defined as having contending expectations. So far, the Kings have yet to win in regulation and on the other side of the ice this evening will be the NHL’s only perfect team to date, winning all four games they’ve played. One of those games on paper that feels like an uphill battle, a game that would deliver for a pretty big exhale if the Kings win and only adds to the pressure if the Kings don’t. Been there before and certainly a big opportunity against a very good team here tonight.

So far this season, the Kings have not found ways to win. I’d argue they’ve found some ways to lose, centering a lot around special teams and other defining moments within games. There aren’t a ton of ways to spin one victory through five games but the Kings aren’t getting throttled or anything like that. They just seem to be finding ways to lose games without complete 60-minute efforts.

“Those big moments, we haven’t delivered in.”

That’s true.

Those larger moments within games, Vegas aside, have not gone the Kings way. A lot of that has been self-inflicted. Haven’t gotten the timely goal, the timely kill, the necessary save. On Thursday, it was a combination of the timely goal, in a 2-2 game with the Kings on a power play in the third period, and the timely save, with Pittsburgh’s game-winning goal coming at the near post on said power play.

“We talked [as a team], we are disappointed with our start, everybody is disappointed with our start,” Jim Hiller said. “Bottom line, we feel like there’s some talk about these big moments that that could be different. It’s not [different], we have to live with it, but we can’t let it drag us down. It’s not like we’re giving up all kinds of chances and not creating and in a big hole, it’s not that. The disappointment is real, but we can’t let it make us sag. We just got to come out and play and Carolina will make you do that.”

It is obviously much easier to express disappointment than to implement changes that help pull you out of it. Getting down as a group by being disappointed isn’t going to help either.

Opening Night against Colorado aside, the Kings aren’t being outplayed in games as a whole or really even being outplayed for more than small stretches. Those small stretches, though, are deciding games. In the second half of last season, the Kings won a lot of those small stretches. They aren’t right now and that has to change.

If you look back to the start of last season, the Kings were heavily outplayed on Opening Night versus Buffalo but found a way to win. I thought it took the Kings close to two months to really establish themselves and it wasn’t until March that things really took shape. Certainly can’t wait until March this year. Two months is too long. Need to see some of the changes now and despite a gauntlet of an early-season schedule, tonight against Carolina is an important game for this group.

3 To Watch For –
– The lines above sit a certain way, I get that. But I’d be very surprised to see icetime distributed in a standard alignment.

Quinton Byfield led all centers on Thursday at just over 18 minutes, around 90 seconds more than Phillip Danault. Byfield will be listed as the 2C when the Kings take the ice. I think there’s a good chance that he will lead all centers in TOI when all is said and done, assuming a normal game flow. Byfield leads all Kings forwards this season in average TOI. No reason to suspect anything else tonight.

The Kings want to keep the Byfield/Fiala pairing together and, at this time, aren’t pushing for a super line with Adrian Kempe on the right side of those two. If the Kings continue to struggle for goals and wins, I’d urge them in that direction. For now, their preference is to try and keep three evenly spread lines and Laferriere through the middle has been something in the works for a while now.

– Good chance for Anton Forsberg to bounce back today, assuming he does in fact get the nod in net.

Forsberg’s statline is interesting, because in looking at Natural Stat Trick’s breakdown, he’s been one of the best goaltenders in the NHL against high-danger shots, but has allowed a lot of his goals against on lower-danger opportunities.

Through two games, Forsberg has faced 18 high-danger shots and has made 17 saves. Per NST, Forsberg has saved 2.35 goals above average, fourth in the NHL in the early goings.

Against Pittsburgh, Forsberg stopped all 10 shots he faced from high-danger locations. He allowed what NST classified as two mid-danger goals and one low-danger goal and I think all three goals were stoppable. He also saved some that were much higher-danger. In the game in Vegas, three of the five goals allowed were classified as low-danger goals against.

It gets tricky when power-play chances are factored in in the Vegas game specifically, but in theory, those totals should be reversed. Long season, short sample size, would assume we’ll see things balance out in time.

– Lastly, a Darcy Kuemper update this morning.

Darcy Kuemper was on the ice early this morning.

Currently day-to-day with a lower-body injury, doesn't feel like a long-term situation. Good sign for the @LAKings to see their starting goaltender out there.

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) October 18, 2025

Kuemper is back on the ice which is a great sign. He’s day-to-day with a lower-body injury and if he is back on the ice, there’s definitely a chance he could travel with the team to St. Louis to begin a five-game trip on Monday. Same goes for Corey Perry, who was on the ice alongside Kuemper.

Kings and Canes tonight, 6 PM puck drop in Los Angeles before a five-game roadtrip awaits.