2/28 Preview – Grundstrom Expected In + Roy’s Offense, End Of Trip Character, Iafallo Update

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (33-20-8) @ Winnipeg Jets (35-24-1)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Tuesday, February 28 @ 5:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Canada Life Centre – Winnipeg, MB
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings have reached the end of their final five-game trip of the season, with a showdown in Winnipeg against the Jets this evening.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Adrian Kempe (2-1-3) leads the Kings against the Jets over the past two seasons, while forward Gabe Vilardi also has two goals and forward Phillip Danault has three assists. Danault has 18 points (7-11-18) from 21 career games against Winnipeg.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held an optional morning skate today in Winnipeg, following yesterday’s full-team skate.

Todd McLellan confirmed that goaltender Pheonix Copley will get the nod this evening in Winnipeg, his third start and fourth appearance on this trip. Copley brings with him a record of 1-2-0 all-time versus the Jets, with a .907 save percentage and a 2.71 goals-against average. Assuming he does in fact start tonight, Copley will have faced Winnipeg more frequently than any other NHL opponent.

No formal line rushes, without the full-team skate, but a potential look below at how the Kings could align this evening –

Byfield – Kopitar – Kempe
Fiala – Danault – Arvidsson
Iafallo – Lizotte – Vilardi
Grundstrom – Kupari – Kaliyev

Anderson – Doughty
Durzi – Roy
Edler – Walker

Copley
Quick

Forward Carl Grundstrom is expected to return to the Kings lineup this evening, per Todd McLellan. A couple of possibilities with regard to roster moves to accommodate Grundstrom, who needed to be activated from injured reserve and Trevor Moore was placed on injured reserve retroactive to 2/22 to make room. Moore would be eligible to be activated before the Kings play again. Forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan and defenseman Tobias Bjornfot were on late for extra work, along with Moore, while forward Brendan Lemieux is currently away from the team attending to a personal matter.

JETS VITALS: Winnipeg has lost five of its last six games coming into tonight’s action and now sits in a wild card position in the Western Conference.

Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck is expected to get the nod this evening for the Jets, in what would tie him for the league lead with 46 appearances this season. Hellebuyck has faced the Kings ten times throughout his professional career and has a record of 5-5-0, along with a .909 save percentage and a 3.02 goals-against average.

Per Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet, here’s how the Jets aligned this morning –

#NHLJets line rushes (no Dubois or Appleton):

Connor-Scheifele-Wheeler
Niederreiter-Lowry-Ehlers
Maenalanen-Stenlund-Kuhlman
Barron-Gustafsson-Gagner

Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Capobianco-Schmidt
Samberg-Stanley

Hellebuyck
Rittich

— Ken Wiebe (@WiebesWorld) February 28, 2023

Forward Pierre-Luc Dubois is a game-time decision, while forward Mason Appleton is “doubtful”. Forward Nino Neiderreiter is expected to make his Winnipeg debut this evening, after he was acquired via trade from Nashville.

Notes –
Royffensive Production
Another game, another goal for defenseman Matt Roy, who now leads all Kings blueliners with nine on the season.

Roy always had offensive potential as evidenced by his eight goals and 29 points from 45 games with the Ontario Reign during the 2018-19 season. Roy was a member of the team’s power play that season, using a heavy shot from the point to help generate offense.

When he first arrived in the NHL, the easiest way to acclimate was to focus on defensive responsibilities and to be trusted and reliable in that department. Even with the goals, that’s still his calling card. Now, Roy has certainly established himself in that role and he’s starting to add more of an offensive component to his game, which is evidenced by the increased offensive production as of late.

“When you get called up, you want to focus on what you’re best at and for me, I think that’s my defensive game,” Roy said. “That’s kind of what I started out with and as you grow into the league and grow the team, you need to take on more, so that’s just something that I’ve tried to do.”

Roy has worked his way into the top 20 in the NHL in goals by a defenseman. Oddly enough, seven of his nine tallies have come on the road, tied for the fourth-most in the NHL. Eight of his nine goals have come at even strength, which ties him for the ninth-best mark around the league. He’s only played two minutes and 15 seconds on the power play this season, so he’s mainly impacting games at 5-on-5, with one shorthanded goal to boot.

“Not a lot of power-play time, if any, and he has nine goals, so that will tell you about his impact offensively on the rush and in the offensive zone,” McLellan said of Roy. “He’s got a tremendous shot and for me, he’s got a great sense of timing, when to jump in and when not to. There are guys that are going all the time and it doesn’t pay off, then there are guys that never go. He’s found the sweet spot and he’s getting rewarded more often than not.”

When you look at Roy’s growth statistically, it’s been a part of a wider, team initiative to do more offensively and to be better and more impactful when joining the rush. Early in the season, offensive totals were up but so were goals against, as the Kings were in search of that balance between the forwards and defensemen with regards to activating and covering when that happened.

They’ve found that balance, as the goals against have dropped drastically, but it hasn’t come at the expense of offensive production for a player like Roy.

“I think part of it is just mindset, just trying to create stuff and get pucks on net like I always do,” Roy added. “I guess I’m just getting bounces, it’s nice that they’re going in but for me, I’m just trying to create some chances and maybe get some rebounds for other guys. Things are just going in this year.”

Late Trip Character
One thing that stood out to me from our last conversation with Kings General Manager Rob Blake (not on the trade front!) was the character he believes his team has shown in the last game of a long trip.

He highlighted the win over Boston and the point in Carolina as examples of finding a result against a very good team. Those games were challenging from a mental standpoint, as is tonight’s game versus Winnipeg for similar reasons. It’s a long trip and weird trip, with a longer flight than you’d usually see, between New York and Winnipeg. With an extended stretch at home coming up, it’d be easy to look ahead.

“At the back end of the trip, those two points are the exact same as anything at the beginning and in between,” McLellan said this morning. “You can’t get ahead of yourself thinking we’re flying home tonight, we’re going to get a day off tomorrow and I get to see my family, because as soon as that happens, you swing the odds against you. I think we have pretty good leadership in the locker room to understand that can’t be the case and really it hasn’t been the case, we’ve been able to play at the back end fairly well. The past doesn’t guarantee the future, we have to take care of things again tonight, but this marks the last long road trip that we have, our last chance to finish one of those trips off properly.”

Long quote, but there’s a lot in there to take in.

Speaking with the players around the room, there was a general consensus and a source of pride that the group hasn’t rolled over in those games so far this season. Back in October, there was a defeat in Washington, but it wasn’t due to any sort of a lack of focus elsewhere. We reference the Boston game this season quite a bit, but even dating back to last year, the Kings won under similar circumstances in Boston and they found wins over Detroit leading into the All-Star break and Washington going into Christmas. It matters and it’ll matter again tonight.

Adrian Kempe – It’s important, I think we’ve been showing that all year, especially the last couple of months. Coming into the last game [tonight], it will be a big road game for us before going home. We know that we’ve been a good home team this year, we’ve [been strong] at home, so it’s going to be a big game against a team that’s been good lately too. A good test for us and you never know eventually who could be a team you’ll play in the playoffs as well.

Sean Walker – I think it’s very important. Obviously, you can see how tight the West is right now, so you can see that every point matters. It doesn’t matter if it’s the end of a roadtrip, you can’t take your foot off the gas. It’s a big game for us, we want to get to .500 on the roadtrip, so that’s the goal and we’ll go in with that mindset.

A Player To Ia-fallo
Lastly, Insiders, a quick update that McLellan shared regarding forward Alex Iafallo, who is currently a bit banged up after he blocked a shot at the end of the win over the Islanders.

“We had him out in the last minute of the game in New York, the shot he blocked, he did everything he could to get his body in front of that,” McLellan said. “He finished the night 20 seconds later, went straight to the x-ray room and hasn’t really felt the same since, but no complaints, he just does it.”

Iafallo is expected to play tonight and as McLellan indicated, he does so without complaint. He’s a player who the Kings like because he does a lot of little things well and he’s a player who his teammates like playing with on a line.

Good signs there and good signs that he is not expected to miss any time.

“Alex is a player that you have to watch closely, you probably have to go back and rewatch the game to appreciate what he does, small situational things,” McLellan added. “He’s not flashy, he’s not going to score 40 goals for us, probably not the fastest guy, but if you walked into our room and you said ‘who do you want on your line that will take care of everything’ probably 95 percent of the guys would say that guy.”

Kings and Jets, tonight at 5 PM Pacific before the team flies home. Big two points on the line in a compact Western Conference!