12/9 Preview – Optional Morning Skate, Athanasiou/JAD In, AA’s Return, Bjornfot’s Development

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (10-10-4) vs. Dallas Stars (13-8-2)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Thursday, December 9 @ 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: Following two games North of the border, the Kings return home for a quick pair of games at STAPLES Center, beginning tonight against Dallas.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Dallas took the first meeting of the season by a 3-2 final, in overtime, on October 22 down in Texas. Among tonight’s expected active skaters, Anze Kopitar scored that night, while Viktor Arvidsson, Arthur Kaliyev and Dustin Brown each tallied an assist. Brown leads all active Kings with 22 goals head-to-head, with Dallas being one of five teams that Brown has scored at least 20 career goals against. Dallas was also the site of Drew Doughty’s recent injury, suffered late in the second period at American Airlines Center.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings are back at home for a pair of games, before they begin a four-game road trip against the Southeast corner of the NHL.

Continuing the rotation of goaltenders, expect to see Jonathan Quick between the pipes this evening for the Kings. The veteran netminder was not on the ice for today’s optional morning skate, signaling the start. Quick made 20 saves in the overtime defeat against Dallas in October, and is 17-12-4 all-time versus the Stars, with a .909 save percentage and a 2.55 goals-against average.

Head Coach Todd McLellan confirmed after today’s optional morning skate that the Kings will make two lineup changes this evening. Expect to see forwards Andreas Athanasiou and Jaret Anderson-Dolan check back in this evening, in place of T.J. Tynan, who was assigned to the AHL, and Lias Andersson.

Athanasiou is re-joining the group for the first time in game action, after he was added to the NHL’s COVID Protocol on November 24. Athanasiou has now put in three practices with the Kings, was activated from the non-roster / COVID-19 list and is ready to go for this evening.

“He brings an ingredient to the team that’s needed, some real good speed,” McLellan said. “He’s got a great sense of individual skill to go along with his speed, he’s played in the league and scored a lot of goals, sounds like a lot of the things that we need. Quite often, that third line group works real hard, but just the polish to finish hasn’t been there near as much, or not enough. Maybe Andreas can help us in that situation.”

Anderson-Dolan was recalled in advance of the trip to Edmonton and Vancouver, following the addition of Blake Lizotte to COVID Protocol. He was re-assigned to Ontario on Tuesday and recalled again the following day, practicing with the Kings yesterday. If he does in fact play tonight, it will be his season debut with the Kings, after he skated in 34 NHL games with the club a season ago.

“JAD’s waited for this moment,” McLellan said. “After training camp, when he went down [to Ontario] it was to get his confidence back, find his game and we believe that he’s done that there. He deserves the opportunity to come in and he’ll get that tonight. We hope that, and believe that, he can have a really effective night, not unlike what happened to him last year. He waited for his opportunity and came out of the gate really well. When he got his chance and took advantage of it, we’re hoping that can happen again.”

We didn’t have official line rushes today, considering the optional skate, but here’s our projected alignment off of some informal things we saw yesterday –

Kempe – Kopitar – Brown
Iafallo – Danault – Arvidsson
Athanasiou – Kupari – Kaliyev
Grundstrom – Anderson-Dolan – Moore

Anderson – Doughty
Edler – Roy
Bjornfot – Durzi

Quick / Petersen

STARS VITALS: Dallas completes a back-to-back set this evening, following a 5-4 defeat in Vegas yesterday evening. Despite last night’s setback, the Stars have been one of the NHL’s hottest teams as of late, having won seven straight games, and nine of ten, before falling by a goal against the Golden Knights.

With Braden Holtby getting the nod yesterday for Dallas, expect to see Jake Oettinger on the second half of the back-to-back tonight in Los Angeles. Still early in his professional career, Oettinger has yet to face the Kings among his 35 career NHL appearances. On the season, Oettinger is 5-0-0 from six appearances, with a .951 save percentage and a 1.41 goals-against average.

In terms of lineup, with the back-to-back, we likely won’t see any kind of Dallas information this morning regarding potential changes for tonight. Per Matthew DeFranks of the Dallas Morning News, here’s how the Stars lined up yesterday in Vegas –

Stars during warmup in Las Vegas:
Robertson-Hintz-Pavelski
Peterson-Benn-Radulov
Raffl-Faksa-Seguin
Kiviranta-Glendening-Gurianov

Suter-Klingberg
Lindell-Heiskanen
Sekera-Hakanpää

Holtby
Oettinger

— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) December 9, 2021

Notes –

Athan-a-see-you Tonight
Have we used that pun before? Probably used that pun before. Doesn’t matter though, calling a statute of limitations here.

As noted above, the expectation is that forward Andreas Athanasiou will make his return to the lineup this evening against Dallas. Athanasiou likely could have been ready to join the team on the trip to Canada, but protocols did not allow him to travel across the border, with the timeline of his COVID test and recovery process.

Athanasiou indicated to us that he was largely asymptomatic, a good sign, and he now has three practices with the team to his credit in advance of today’s game.

“I feel pretty good,” he said. “I would’ve liked to get in there, in the Canada games, but with their protocols I was unable to go into Canada. I’m definitely ready to go for tonight.”

Athanasiou pointed to some of the usual “coming back to the lineup” phrases, starting out taking things one shift at a time, preparing as best you can when you’re number is called to return, etc. He also, though, talked about the positives of being able to watch games from home, staying in tune with the systems and the structure, seeing how everyone is playing, calling it a different perspective.

As upbeat as he stayed though, it’s hard not to think that he’s been dealt a pretty tough hand here this season. An injury during the opening days of training camp cost him the entire month of October, and then, eight games in, he’s sidelined for six additional games due to COVID. A tough go for a player who has been noticeable when he’s been available.

“It is what it is,” he said. “You can’t really do anything about that, those are the uncontrollables. You just have to do what you can to be ready and obviously there are things in this game, this business, that happens. It’s out of your control, you just have to have that short-term memory when bad things happen, just look forward to the next opportunity to get in. Come to the rink, try to get better, whether it’s getting better from COVID, getting better from an injury, and taking it one day at a time, be ready when you are ready to play.

When asked a similar question, McLellan pointed to Athanasiou’s confidence, noting he doesn’t believe there will be any “woe is me” feeling there. He first touched on the physical part of the process, noting that Athanasiou’s effortless skating style allowed him to clear that part of the return, while he also touched on the fact that for all of the time he’s missed, it’s been outside of things he can control.

“Dubs is a confident individual, he believes in himself,” McLellan said today. “He’s had setbacks, none of them he’s had any control over, so he can deal with it. I think it took him about 3, 4, 5 periods after his last break, to get up and running, and we’re hoping that happens even quicker this time. He’ll start in a certain spot, and I believe he can be effective right away.”

Bjorn In……2001
It’s hard to believe that Tobias Bjornfot isn’t even of drinking age yet here in the United States, isn’t it?

At just 20-years-old, Bjornfot now feels like he’s been here for a while, but it’s been just 60 career NHL games, all at an age where most players are still playing amateur hockey. Things came full circle a bit for the young defenseman over the weekend, as he played in Edmonton for the first time since his NHL debut, as an 18-year-old back in October 2019.

On that night, he spent a lot of time partnering Drew Doughty in a very difficult situation. Speaking the other day, Doughty has been impressed with Bjornfot’s development, noting the strides he took when Doughty himself was injured, and his overall growth.

“Toby’s great, when I was out especially he stepped up his game,” Doughty said. “He started moving his feet, he started making plays, getting in on the offense. He’s got all the tools and you forget how young he still is. He’s going to be a great player for us, I couldn’t be happier with the way he’s progressed. Great player, great guy, everyone loves him. He just needs to keep growing and I think he can be a star in this league.”

Hear from Bjornfot on returning to Edmonton, defending Connor McDavid and other items below –

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— LA Kings (@LAKings) December 9, 2021