11/3 Preview – Morning Skate Notes + Fiala’s Streak, PP Unit Balance, Kaliyev “ready to score”

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (6-6-0) @ Chicago Blackhawks (4-4-2)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR SEASON GAME
WHEN: Thursday, November 3 @ 5:30 PM Pacific
WHERE: United Center – Chicago, IL
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings conclude a three-game roadtrip later on this evening with their first game of the season against the Chicago Blackhawks.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings earned points from all three matchups versus Chicago a season ago, posting a 2-0-1 record, including a victory here in Illinois. Forward Phillip Danault led the Kings with four goals and five points against the Blackhawks last season, while forward Viktor Arvidsson and defenseman Sean Durzi each had four assists from three games played.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings are back in action this morning with a full-team skate at United Center, following an off day yesterday.

Jonathan Quick and Cal Petersen split the back-to-back earlier this week against St. Louis and Dallas and Quick was the first goaltender off this morning, signaling he’ll get the start tonight in Chicago. All-time versus the Blackhawks, Quick is 15-16-2, with a .911 save percentage and a 2.58 goals-against average.

Below is how the Kings aligned this morning during rushes –

Kempe – Kopitar – Vilardi
Moore – Danault – Arvidsson
Fiala – Kupari – Grundstrom
Lemieux – Lizotte – Kaliyev
Anderson-Dolan

Anderson – Doughty
Durzi – Roy
Edler – Walker
Clarke

Quick
Petersen

As Tuesday’s game should tell us, don’t lock in anything with regards to the lineup until the card is signed, sealed and delivered. The Kings went with an 11F/7D look in Dallas, with Brandt Clarke checking in for Brendan Lemieux. Lemieux is an option to check back in, as could be forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan, who took the warmup against the Stars but was the odd-man out with the inverted alignment. The three players mentioned here were the last three on the ice this morning, though at least one should be expected to play when looking at numbers.

BLACKHAWKS VITALS: Like the Kings, the Blackhawks were last in action on Tuesday, as they saw their losing streak extend to four games (0-2-2) with a 3-1 defeat against the New York Islanders.

Chicago is expected to start goaltender Arvid Soderblom, who has yet to face the Kings so far in his short NHL career. Soderblom has five career NHL apperances, with four of those being starts, including two this season. He is 0-1-1 with a .920 save percentage and a 3.12 goals-against average thus far in 2022-23. The usual goaltending tandem of Petr Mrazek (groin) and Alex Stalock (concussion protocol) are expected to miss out.

Per Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times, here’s how Blackhawks lined up during morning skate today –

Blackhawks lines in morning skate vs. Kings:

Athanasiou-Domi-Kane
Kurashev-Toews-Raddysh
Entwistle-Dickinson-Lafferty
Katchouk-Khaira-RJohnson

JJohnson-McCabe
Tinordi-Murphy
Roos-CJones

Soderblom

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) November 3, 2022

Former Kings winger Andreas Athanasiou, who spent the last two seasons in Southern California, is set to play against his former team, skating on Chicago’s top forward line. For the second straight game, the opposition will have a backup goaltender who was signed to an NHL contract out of emergency, with Dylan Wells inked to a one-year deal after the injuries to Mrazek and Stalock.

Five For Fiala
Love a good bit of alliteration to get things rolling.

With points in five straight games, forward Kevin Fiala enters tonight’s action leading the Kings with 10 assists this season, and the Swiss winger is tied with Gabe Vilardi for the team lead in points.

Fiala is a point-per-game player here in the early goings, with 13 (3-10-13) from 13 games played, touting many of the offensive skills the Kings acquired him to provide. While the 30 goals he scored last season were certainly appealing, Fiala has also shown an ability to make plays with the puck on his stick and is one of eight players across the NHL with double-digit assists here in the early stages of the season.

A big shift for Fiala was a reshuffling of the forward lines, which the Kings executed after a 6-4 loss to Winnipeg last week. The adjustments put Fiala on a unit with Rasmus Kupari and Carl Grundstrom, a pair of younger players who have elements of both skill and hard work in their game. The result for Fiala has been six points (2-4-6) from those three games, including goals against Toronto and Dallas.

“I think it’s just simplifying the game you know, it’s a part of success, I think, to just shoot some pucks, get to the front, get pucks down deep and grind them out,” Fiala said. ”Just create some offense and I think the big thing is just simplifying our game a little bit.”

While the hope out of camp was that Fiala would seamlessly slot onto a line with Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe, the current alignment has given the Kings more balance throughout the lineup. When looking at matchups, having a line driven by Fiala that runs alongside Kopitar’s line, as well as the established second line, it makes things more difficult when determining who to try and shutdown.

“For sure, it’s nice to have all the lines going, it’s a team sport and I think especially in our wins so far, we’re playing good for 60 minutes as a team,” Fiala said. “I think we have to get back to that a little bit, but it helps us a lot to have that depth.”

That’s not to say we won’t see a shift back at a later point this season. Over the course of 82 games, things change and adjustments will need to be made.

For now, however, seeing the current alignment work as intended has been a bonus for the Kings, with the added depth throughout the lineup coming during the team’s most consistent stretch of the season, even if there is still a ways to go in that department.

Second (?) PP Unit
As noted yesterday, the Kings have received more balance this season when it’s come to the power play. Much of that has come down to a more stable and more successful PP2, with five goals apiece for both groups.

The second unit, if that’s what you want to call it as Todd McLellan pointed out, has scored in four consecutive games, with three of those goals coming from forward Arthur Kaliyev and one from forward Viktor Arvidsson. Kaliyev has scored on the man advantage against Dallas, St. Louis and Winnipeg, with Arvidsson tallying against Toronto.

What’s made that unit tick? Hear it from those most directly involved –

Kaliyev: I think we have a great combination of everything on that unit. We’re getting a lot of pucks on net, making great plays, keeping pucks alive. Overall, I think we’ve had everything, we’re doing a great job so hopefully we can keep it up.

Phillip Danault: I think we just keep it simple and we have a secret weapon. We have two good units and I think we’re keeping it simple, attack the net and we’re all on the same page. We’re working to get loose pucks, retrieving pucks and those little details can bring you a long way.

Sean Durzi: I mean, that’s good news, it’s good to find out that we got four in a row, but I think we just focus on what we can do well, do it to the best of our abilities and hopefully the puck goes in the net. Four games in a row means something’s working. We’re getting on the same page, we talk a lot talking about plays we want to make and where we want to be for each other and that’s really important.

McLellan: Second or first, it depends on how you look at it. We haven’t looked at it any different, there are times when they start, there’s other times when Kopi’s unit starts, but they’re getting some things done. Not Picasso goals, but they’re goals. They move the puck well, they are relentless in getting it back and sometimes they simplify things and it works for them.

Secret weapon, eh Phil? IYKYK.

To Build Off That……
Looking at the note above, the last two have come in similar fashion, with the goals versus St. Louis and Dallas.

Dallas

St. Louis

The alignment the Kings use on the power play has an umbrella at the top, with Kaliyev typically on the right side of that umbrella. In both games, Kaliyev has had a read and react mindset, not necessarily using his booming one-timer, but rather his hockey sense to convert on a low-to-high play that was somewhat broken.

“Retrieval points, when you’re on that back side and the puck comes to the net ona certain angle, odds are it’s coming out into your area,” McLellan said. “Jimmy [Hiller] talks about being ready to score not ready to shoot and there’s a big difference. I think we’re trying to get Arthur into that mindset of that comes to you get ready to score not just to shoot.”

From Kaliyev’s perspective, he’s trying to read and react, with the mindset McLellan and Hiller are talking about.

While being on the right side opens him up more for one-timer opportunities, the Kings also have players on the left side, sometimes down low, who can create opportunities for Kaliyev in a different way. We saw a similar goal scored on Opening Night versus Vegas and we’ve seen it again over the last two games. Low-to-high plays, with Kaliyev converging on the puck at the right time.

“I just try to read it, thinking about where the puck is going to be,” Kaliyev said. “They put it in a good spot and then it’s just reading about where the rebound went and where the puck is going to be. Then I try to just end up there, right place at the right time.”

Kings and Blackhawks, tonight at 5:30 PM Pacific, 7:30 PM local, before we head home for four in Los Angeles! 2-1-0 is a good trip, as they say, see if the Kings can get it done a bit later on.