Practice 12/22 – Gavrikov Skates, Kings Work on PP + McLellan on Moverare, Copley & 6-on-4

Final practice before the holiday break, Insiders!

The Kings hit the ice here this morning at Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo, their final full-team skate before hosting the Calgary Flames.

Today’s skate was not a particularly long one, though it came with pointed direction and focus. More on that below. For today, a look at how the team lined up below, including a couple of updates on selected players.

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Spence
Bjornfot

Rittich / Talbot

Gavrikov? Gavrikov!

The Kings welcomed back defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov to the practice today, in a full-contact jersey, as a full participant in practice. Sounds like that week-to-week timeline might have been accurate, eh? Reports have had Gavrikov skating on his own in recent days, as he worked his way back and today marked his first practice day back with the team. Really, it was the first opportunity for him to practice since Monday, when he may not have been at that stage in his rehab, before the Kings departed for San Jose.

Todd McLellan was non-committal on Gavrikov’s status for tomorrow, but provided the following update –

“A really good sign that he is on the ice today and that he’s not in the non-contact jersey, but I haven’t had an opportunity to meet with [Athletic Trainer Chris Kingsley] or Gavy to see how well it went. If we feel that he’s obviously capable of contributing for a full night and he’s ready to go, then of course. If not, then the three extra days won’t hurt.”

Sounds like a true wait and see there, so we’ll see how things progress here over the next 24 hours. Still, even if it’s not tomorrow, it certainly feels as if the game against San Jose on 12/27 is a real possibility. So, at the very least, it’s nice to see that light at the end of the tunnel, for an important player on this team.

Should Gavrikov not be able to go, the Kings have defenseman Tobias Bjornfot active and practicing with the team, as well as Jacob Moverare, who has filled that spot in each of the four games that Gavrikov has missed. Moverare was assigned to the AHL yesterday, in a move that feels more on the management side than the actual performance side, and did not pratice today. Should Gavrikov not be able to go, Moverare would be an obvious choice to be recalled.

Whether or not that happens is out of his or our control, but he’s clearly shown an ability to “pinch hit”, providing solid, steady and reliable play when he’s been in action.

“Teams have different types of, I don’t want to call them pinch hitters, but I can’t think of a better term right now, different types of players that fill in or get called up,” McLellan added. “As I said the other night, Jacob is an excellent one for that, because he carries himself – and JAD too – I don’t mean they’re those types of players, but they have real good attitudes, they work hard and they’re ready to play when it’s time to go. I’ve seen it the other way, when that extra player or somebody who isn’t playing on a regular basis is nothing but miserable and that makes it hard on everybody.”

Additionally, McLellan provided the following on goaltender Pheonix Copley.

“He’s a big part of our team. He means a lot to the group. He comes to the rink, he’s got some therapy going on right now. It’s hard to see him limping around. He’s got a path ahead of him that won’t be easy, but in any case, he’s around and he’s an important part of the team. We like having him around, we want him here, same thing with Arvy.”

Copley is on long-term injured reserve (LTIR) and won’t play for the foreseeable future, but McLellan stressed his importance to the club above. David Rittich impressed in his debut, showing his experience at this level in the win over San Jose. With lots of travel and some back-to-backs coming up, as the schedule becomes more condensed, the Kings will need reliable goaltending from two netminders, not just one. There’s confidence in Rittich, though Copley will be missed both personally and professionally.

Kings Address Power Play
It wasn’t the only focal point of practice today, but the power play was certainly one of them.

After Wednesday’s loss against Seattle, the Kings rued missed opportunities on the man advantage. Now, this is a unit that had scored in six consecutive games coming in, so it’s not like things are dire overall, but against the Kraken, McLellan felt the power play lacked movement, both in terms of quickness and between personnel. While not laying out specifics, it was clear the Kings put a large chunk of time and effort into that part of the game.

“We worked on some things, yeah,” McLellan said after today’s practice. “In that game, the way teams are penalty killing now, there’s not a lot of space on the interior and if you’re going to create anything from the exterior, you better move the puck with some authority of pace. There was a pause in every pass we made the other night. Pass, pause, pass, pause and that’s not going to cut it. We obviously talked about it a little bit and did some work. It’s time to perform in that situation.”

It’s not breaking news here, but on the power play, you have more skaters on the ice than the opposition.

That presents opportunities to take advantage of odd-man situations. The Kings have had great movement on the power play here over the last 18 months, since Jim Hiller has joined the coaching staff and implemented his system. When things have gone dry, it typically hasn’t been as a result of the passing, but rather an over-reliance on it. With a day of focus and an ability to address some things, the Kings are hopeful to see some improvements tomorrow against the Flames.

“We’re up by a player and we should have more options available to us than the other team can take away, but if you’re continually looking all the way across the field, you’re probably only seeing the opposition’s jerseys and that slows you down,” McLellan added. “Sometimes you’ve got to move a puck around and you’ve got to attack with a shot or something and then they’re out of position to go to the spots you may have originally wanted to go to.”

Lastly on that front, while it’s not the topic of the day, there was a situation in Wednesday’s game that I found interesting related to the power play.

With the Kings trailing 2-1 late in the game, Seattle took a penalty with just under three minutes left in regulation. That put the Kings on the man advantage, trailing by a goal, with less than three minutes to play.

In that situation, you have two options. You can keep your goaltender in net, taking the 5-on-4 advantage, maybe adding the extra attacker later in the sequence, or you can pull the goaltender for the 6-on-4, but understand that when you do that, it gives the opponent the ability to ice the puck towards the empty net without consequence. Todd McLellan outlined the Kings strategy in those situations below –

“That’s a good question, because 5-on-4, you’re thinking okay, we’re going to give our power play an opportunity. We’ve got two minutes, we’re only down by one, something goes wrong they don’t get a free look at it. At 6-on-4, we’re going okay, we should be able to retrieve pucks and block escape routes if we can. So, we’re willing to keep the goaltender out and that’s the thought process.”

Seattle had a few decent looks at the empty net but weren’t able to hit it. As much of a grind as the second and third periods on Wednesday were, the Kings had a real chance to tie things up late in the game. Ultimately, they couldn’t get the looks they wanted 6-on-4 and eventually wound up on the losing end of a tight game. Should they find themselves in that position again, there’s a look into the thought process of why they might opt for one approach versus the other.

Game preview to follow tomorrow, as the Kings host Calgary for the final game before the NHL’s Holiday Break! Will have notes on Lizotte’s 100-point milestone and the pulse on the team one game before three days off, plus hopefully a couple of updates from tomorrow’s morning skate.