10/28 Preview – Maatta in / Projected Lines + offensive responsibilities & power play makeup

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (1-4-1) vs. Winnipeg Jets (3-2-1)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Thursday, October 28 @ 7:30 PM Pacific
WHERE: STAPLES Center – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings are back at home tonight to begin a five-game homestand, with the Winnipeg Jets in town to kick things off.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings and Jets obviously did not square off last season, with their most recent meetings coming during the 2019-20 season. LA went 2-1-0 against the Jets two seasons prior, including a 2-1 victory at STAPLES Center. Kings forward Anze Kopitar led the team with three points (1-2-3) from three games played against Winnipeg during the 2019-20 campaign. The Jets are one of five NHL teams that Kopitar is over a point-per-game against during his NHL career, with 26 (9-17-26) from 25 games played.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings were back on the ice today for morning skate.

Jonathan Quick was the first goaltender off this morning for the Kings, making him tonight’s likely starter in net. Quick was stout on Monday evening in St. Louis, though he did not receive any goal support in the 3-0 defeat. All-time against Winnipeg, Quick is 6-5-2, with a .898 save percentage and a 2.78 goals against average. In his last time out against the Jets, back in October 2019, Quick made 26 saves on 28 shots to earn the victory.

The skaters appeared to line up similarly to how they did yesterday afternoon. Without Drew Doughty and Sean Walker for the foreseeable future, the Kings will rely on others to step into larger roles on the backend, with a “by committee” approach to filling the holes left by those two players. The pairings appeared to hold from yesterday, which would see Olli Maatta check back in for his second game of the season, with Kale Clague likely not seeing his season debut tonight.

“Olli, in our opinion, is a long-term defenseman,” Todd McLellan said. “Not that the others aren’t, but he’s here, he’s a depth defenseman, he has experience and he hasn’t had the chance to play a lot. In his first or second exhibition game, he took the big hit, he came back for one game and we’ve got to get him playing. It would have been maybe a different story if we hadn’t lost two veteran defensemen, but we did, so Olli will be in the lineup tonight.”

At the forward position, the Kings reverted back to their opening-night top six, with some different combinations in the bottom six. Rasmus Kupari appears set to continue playing center, with Gabe Vilardi playing on the wing. Blake Lizotte also looks likely to check back into the lineup, in place of Vladimir Tkachev.

Here’s how the team lined up this morning for the first wave of line rushes –

Arvidsson – Kopitar – Brown
Kempe – Danault – Iafallo
Moore – Lizotte – Kaliyev
Grundstrom – Kupari – Vilardi

Bjornfot – Anderson
Maatta – Roy
Edler – Strand

Quick / Petersen

JETS VITALS: Winnipeg began the season with three consecutive losses, one in overtime, but have now earned points from their last four games, including three consecutive victories. The Jets swept two games against the Ducks, sandwiched around a win over Nashville, to carry a 3-2-1 record into tonight’s action.

As reported by Global News, forward Blake Wheeler is not expected to play tonight. The Jets are also currently without forward Mark Schiefele, who remains on the COVID-19 Protocol list that Wheeler was taken off yesterday.

Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck has started each of his team’s first six games but will make way for Eric Comrie in tonight’s contest. Hellebuyck is one of the last, true workhorse number-one goaltenders, having led the NHL in games played by a goaltender in three of the last four seasons. Comrie, who is in line for his season debut this evening, is 3-5-0 from nine career NHL appearances, winning his only NHL appearance last season with New Jersey.

Per Murat Ates of The Athletic, here is how the Jets lined up last time out in Anaheim, though nothing confirmed from this morning –

Copp – Stastny – Ehlers
Connor – Dubois – Svechnikov
Harkins – Lowry – Vesalainen
Nash – Toninato
Wheeler

Morrissey – Schmidt
Dillon – Pionk
Stanley – DeMelo
Beaulieu

Comrie / Hellebuyck

Notes –

How Things Change….
Look, it’s no secret that the losses of Drew Doughty and Sean Walker will have a massive impact on the Kings as they currently stand. There is no 1-for-1 replacement for Doughty, and Walker’s skating ability and offensive skillset were unique to him.

The group as it’s expected to look tonight will certainly consist of more defensive-minded players than offensive.

“We have to look at what we have, and not worry about what we don’t have,” McLellan said. “What we should have are some real good defenders, players that can snuff out offensive opportunities, be good on the penalty kill – obviously I’m talking about the backend. We probably don’t have any scoring champs on the backend, but that’s okay. They all have to play to their strengths and we have to be a good, defensive group, from the backend up.”

What McLellan went on to indicate is that having less offense coming from the blueline puts more of the onus on the forwards to produce.

“The offense is going to fall to the forwards a bit more,” McLellan said. “I do believe we can get a lot of pucks to the net from the blueline and that’s going to hand off scoring chances to the forwards, and they’ve got to capitalize in those situations. Extended plays in the o-zone starts with the faceoff, so we’ve got to win more of those than we lose, we’ll have the puck a little bit longer. The forecheck, can we get the pieces to do what we need them to do, can we keep scrums and loose-puck plays alive. A lot of that responsibility is going to go on the forwards.”

Now, that’s not necessarily new, either. The Kings have scored 14 goals so far this season, and the Anze Kopitar line has been involved with 10 of those goals. At 5-on-5, the Kings haven’t gotten enough production from their bottom-nine forwards, and they knew that before Doughty and Walker went down.

Now, the onus falls even more on those players to help carry the load behind Kopitar.

“I think, as a whole, outside of Kopi’s line, we would like to score more goals in general,” forward Trevor Moore said this morning. “I don’t know if it adds any more pressure, I think we’re already feeling like we need to contribute a little bit more in that aspect.”

Moore said that being consistently aggressive will lead to more offense. At least, that’s the plan, right?

In Moore’s eyes, the Kings have shown the necessary aggression at times, though it hasn’t felt like we’ve seen that for a full 60 minutes since Opening Night against Vegas. The closest comparable was Dallas, though on a night when the Kings dominated the flow of play, the result was still just two goals scored.

Bringing that level of play more consistently will go a long way towards finding more offense.

“I think that we’ve had moments, we’ve been aggressive and we’ve gotten a lot of good looks,” he said. “There’s another team out there too, right, they’re doing things to try and get away from us when we’re putting that much pressure on them. It’s about finding ways to keep that more consistently, keep being aggressive and we’ve got to bury some chances.”

Power Players
While the impact of Doughty and Walker extends to all areas of the game, on the power play, those were options one and two, the only defensemen who regularly featured on the PP when both in the lineup.

We saw Matt Roy take Doughty’s place on the top unit, after his injury, with Alexander Edler logging some time in place of Walker on Monday in St. Louis. In terms of personnel, McLellan highlighted both Roy and Edler as options, as well as Kale Clague, who is unlikey to feature tonight but could check in this weekend.

“Let’s face it, if you’re playing in the National Hockey League, you’ve played on the power play at some point in your career,” McLellan said this morning. “It’s tougher as you get a little bit higher here. Edler has had a lot of experience on the power play, Roy hasn’t had much. Clague, who’s coming from the minors, has experience there, but not a lot of NHL experience.”

The Kings, unlike some teams, run a four-forward power-play unit, which at the least reduces the number of defensemen that need replacing. It’s one man per PP unit, but that puts additional responsibility on that one player.

“We’re a four-forward power-play unit, we’re only talking about one individual there, but that guy’s the quarterback, everything seems to run through that individual from breakouts to pace of power play to execution,” McLellan said. “That’s why Drew, and Walks in some cases, were very important to us, over and above their 5-on-5 play. It’ll be by committee until we establish some comfort with groups of players, and we’ll evaluate as we go.”

Doughty and Walker both manned the center point, the “quarterback” of the unit as McLellan phrased it. Both players ran their units differently, with Doughty more apt to shoot the puck and Walker more of a distributor. Those skillsets aren’t necessarily the makeup of the current group, highlighting the importance of players lost, but right now, they’re not available and there’s nothing to be gained by looking backwards.

Would McLellan ever consider a five-forward look?

He joked that the Kings went with six forwards the other night, with the goaltender pulled, so going five would be no problem. In the here and now though, the current group of defensemen will have the opportunity to earn a role on the PP, before going that route.

“There is that option and we’ve talked about it, but right now, we believe we have to show confidence in our defensemen,” he said. “They’re young, it’s early in the season. It’s not like Drew and Walks will be back in a week, it’s going to be a long time and we want to show confidence in our defensemen and believe that they can do the job first. Then, perhaps, we could look at five forwards if it doesn’t happen. That’s where we’re at right now.”

We’re still several hours from puck drop tonight, but this is certainly one that is eagerly awaited to see how the team responds to adversity….Kings and Jets, coming up at 7:30!