12/20 Preview – Managing Back-To-Backs, koPPitar, PP Success, Go To Mo, TV Schedule

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (18-6-4) vs. Seattle Kraken (10-14-9)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Wednesday, December 20 @ 7:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: TNT / Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The Kings are back at home ice for their second-to-last game before the holiday break, as they host the Seattle Kraken for the first time this season.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings and Kraken met just four days ago, with LA defeating Seattle by a 3-2 scoreline at Climate Pledge Arena in Washington. The Kings got goals from forwards Anze Kopitar and Trevor Moore against the Kraken last time out, while forward Carl Grundstrom scored the game-winning goal in the shootout. With an assist in the first period, Kevin Fiala picked up the 11th helper of his career versus the Kraken, second most in NHL history against Seattle.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings did not hold a morning skate today, considering the back-to-back set.

Goaltender Cam Talbot did not play last night, so we’ll assume he gets the nod tonight. Talbot earned the win over Seattle on Saturday, as he improved his all-time record versus the Kraken to 2-2-0. Talbot has posted a .894 save percentage and a 2.90 goals-against average from four career appearances versus Seattle.

Without the morning skate today, no sense of any potential line changes coming off last night’s lineup, which is embedded below for reference –

Tonight's @LAKings Line Rushes –

Byfield – Kopitar – Kempe
Fiala – Danault – Moore
Laferriere – Dubois – Kaliyev
Grundstrom – Lizotte – Lewis

Anderson – Doughty
Moverare – Roy
Englund – Spence

Rittich
Talbot

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) December 20, 2023

Should the Kings opt for a lineup change on the back-to-back, forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan and defenseman Tobias Bjornfot are both healthy and available to check in at their respective positions.

KRAKEN VITALS: Seattle has points in four consecutive games, extended with OT/SO losses against the Kings and Stars over the last five days.

Updating here that it looks as if Joey Daccord will get the nod tonight for the visitors, as he led the team onto the ice today for warmups. The Kings faced Daccord for the first time in his NHL career on Saturday in Seattle.

Per Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times, here’s how the Kraken lined up last time out, on Monday against Dallas –

ICYMI earlier, here are the lines/pairings for the #SEAKraken against the Dallas Stars. #NHL

Tatar-Beniers-Eberle
Tolvanen-Gourde-Bjorkstrand
McCann-Wennberg-Tanev
Kartye-Bellemare-Yamamoto

Dunn-Larsson
Oleksiak-Borgen
Dumoulin-Evans

Daccord

— Geoff Baker (@GeoffBakerTIMES) December 19, 2023

No team in the NHL has lost more games in overtime or the shootout than Seattle (9). With five points over his last three games played, forward Oliver Bjorkstrand has taken over the team lead in scoring on the season. Vince Dunn has 21 assists so far this season, tied for the ninth-most amongst NHL defensemen.

Quick Hitters –
Battling Back-To-Back
As Todd McLellan admitted after last night’s game, the third period in San Jose presented friendly circumstances for a back-to-back situation.

The Kings led 3-0 on night one and were in complete control of the game. That allowed them to run lines as they preferred, especially when considering the second game scheduled 24 hours later.

“You hope for that, you don’t always get it, but when you’re up 3-0 and in control, you’re able to play everybody,” McLellan said. “You couldn’t ask for a better scenario than that with a back-to-back game.”

While not a perfectly even distribution of ice time on the evening, just one forward was below 12 minutes and just two were above 17. No forward played more than Kevin Fiala’s 17:33. In the third period specifically, all 12 forwards played within four and six minutes in total. None were lower than 4:22 and none higher than 5:48.

That’s certainly the right way to kick off a back-to-back set, that included travel home last night from San Jose. Certainly not the worst travel, as the Kings touched down just after midnight, plus it’s a night in their own beds, but still a bit of travel nonetheless. Now, as the Kings approach the back half, it comes down to how the Kings handled themselves between games and how they’ll respond here tonight.

“It’s always going to come down to how guys respond, as far as rest goes, and how well prepared they are to do it all over again,” McLellan added.

koPPitar
Three straight games with a power-play goal for forward Anze Kopitar. Six straight games with a power-play goal for the Kings as a whole.

It’s certainly about more than one guy, no question, but against Winnipeg, Seattle and San Jose, it’s been Kopitar applying the finishing touch from just outside the net.

Kopitar uses his size in and around the net extremely well and he’s currently tracking towards one of the best seasons of his career from a goal-scoring standpoint. None of Kopitar’s three power-play goals have been highlight-reel dazzlers, but that certainly doesn’t make them easy. Having the awareness to be in the right place at the right time, and the ability to finish in tight, is an area in which Kopitar simply excels.

“Putting those in, they’re a lot harder than you think,” forward Quinton Byfield said of Kopitar. “Being in the right spot and timing it perfectly, when there’s a pass through a defender you kind of lose the puck sometimes. It’s a skill for sure, just being there at the right time in the right space and seeing the puck.”

While of late it’s been Kopitar, a lot of players have been involved over these last six games.

Seven different players have tallied at least one power-play point over those six games. While all six goals have come with the bulk of the first unit on the ice, it was Arthur Kaliyev who made the incisive play last night, fresh off the bench, as he won a puck back below the goal line before feeding Kopitar for the goal.

Todd McLellan believes it’s been a balanced approach, with a mindset of scoring goals like Kopitar’s that has led to recent success.

“It’s both units, it’s important that we have 10-12 players that can perform,” he said. “I think we’re getting away from thinking that we have to score pretty all the time. Kopi’s goal, it wasn’t a pretty goal, but there was a lot of work that went into it. As a result, we’re putting more in than we have in the past, so we’ll try and keep that going.”

Go To Mo
Strong start to his NHL season for defenseman Jacob Moverare, who has played in all three games since defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov has exited the lineup with a lower-body injury.

Where Moverare and Todd McLellan agree most is that Moverare does a great job of simply playing his game.

While we had a couple of almost moments last night, thinking we might see that first career NHL goal for the Swedish blueliner, where he makes his bread is at the other end of the ice, via steady, reliable hockey. Last night’s possession metrics for Moverare looked a lot like a Gavrikov statline, with tons of attempts for, compared to just a few against, on top of an 8-2 advantage in high-danger chances.

“I feel pretty good, I just try to play my game and I think I’ve been doing that over these few games,” Moverare said. “I think I know my game pretty well, so I try to play to my strengths. I have some weaknesses in my game, that are a little bit bigger than other guys maybe, so I try to stay away from those and play to my strengths.”

It’s good self-awareness from a player who is regularly lauded by the coaching staff for doing exactly that.

“He knows who he is, he just goes in and plays his game no matter who the opponent is and that’s a good thing,” McLellan said of Moverare. “Sometimes, when players are out for awhile, they think they’ve got to hit a bunch of homeruns to stay in the lineup. Jacob just does his thing.”

With the expectation that he’ll continue alongside Matt Roy for the time being, with Gavrikov working his way back, that’s the type of performance the Kings will look to continue to get. Steady, reliable, within himself. Exactly what Moverare excels at.

TV Updates
Lastly, Insiders, some clarity for tonight.

For those in the Los Angeles TV market, tonight’s game will air on Bally Sports West, as it usually would. Kings production, Kings broadcast talent. For those outside the LA market, the game will air on TNT, with national talent and a national production. One of, I believe, three games like that this season and games like these come with a team that is garnering more national attention than we’ve seen in seasons past. There’s a balance between the number of games national rightsholders can take from local rightsholders, with games like tonight presenting the opportuntiy to showcase the Kings more nationally, while still complying with those regulations.

Secondly, a couple of broadcast changes for later in the season were announced yesterday.

On February 17, on the road in Boston, the Kings will play their first game on ABC since the NHL signed its new broadcast contract before the 2021-22 season. 9:30 AM Pacific time faceoff at TD Garden, as two teams expected to be in the thick of a playoff race square off, with the Kings in the midst of an Eastern Conference roadtrip. If Wikipedia is to be believed, it’ll be the first Kings game on ABC since March 27, 2004, a 3-2 overtime loss to Calgary. The most recent King to score on ABC? Jeff Cowan. See if that changes in a couple months’ time.

Additionally, the Kings announced changes to January 18 versus Nashville, which is now an ESPN+ / Hulu exclusive game, with April 4 versus San Jose now a Bally Sports West broadcast.

And that’s that! Kings and Kraken tonight, penultimate game before the NHL’s Holiday break begins on Sunday!