1/11 Preview – Full Morning Skate + Line Rushes, What Has Gone Well, Better Managing Leads

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (20-10-7) @ Florida Panthers (26-12-2)
WHAT: NHL REGULAR-SEASON GAME
WHEN: Thursday, January 11 @ 4:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Amerant Bank Arena– Sunrise, FL
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: Bally Sports West – AUDIO – iHeart Radio – TWITTER: @DooleyLAK & @LAKings

TONIGHT’S MATCHUP: The roadtrip continues for the LA Kings, a they look to snap a six-game losing streak tonight against the Florida Panthers.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Kevin Fiala led the Kings with a multi-point night (1-1-2) when these two teams met earlier this season. Forward Anze Kopitar also scored in that game and has 12 points (5-7-12) over his last nine games played versus the Panthers.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held a full-team morning skate today, following an off-ice practice day yesterday.

Goaltender Cam Talbot was off first this morning, making him tonight’s projected starter between the pipes here this evening. Talbot picked up the victory against Florida earlier this season, with 30 saves on 31 shots faced. He’s posted an all-time record of 8-5-0 against the Panthers, with a .921 save percentage and a 2.62 goals-against average.

Below is how the Kings set up during line rushes here this morning –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov – Roy
Englund – Spence
Clarke

Talbot
Rittich

As per the above line rushes, the Kings do not appear to be making any changes to personnel from Tuesday against Tampa Bay. Up front, centers Pierre-Luc Dubois and Blake Lizotte switched spots today versus where they lined up against the Lightning. We’ll see if that remains true for the game tonight.

PANTHERS VITALS: Tonight is Florida’s first game back at home after a four-game trip against Western Conference opposition, all victories for the Panthers. Florida has five consecutive victories of three-plus goals in total, dating back to December 30.

Per George Richards of FLA Hockey Now, expect to see goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky between the pipes tonight for the hosts. Bobrovsky has posted a career record of 3-10-2 against the Kings, with a .900 save percentage and a 2.99 goals-against average from 16 appearances.

Per Jameson Olive of FloridaPanthers.com, here’s how the hosts lined up last time out versus St. Louis –

#TimeToHunt in warmups:

Rodrigues – Barkov – Reinhart
Verhaeghe – Bennett – Tkachuk
Luostarinen – Lundell – Lomberg
Gadjovich – Stenlund – Lockwood

Forsling – Ekblad
Mikkola – Montour
OEL – Kulikov

Stolarz
Bobrovsky

— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) January 10, 2024

Florida’s Sam Reinhart ranks second in the NHL with 29 goals entering tonight’s action, while forward Carter Verhaeghe is tied for eighth with 22. Reinhart’s 14 power-play goals are the most in the league and Verhaeghe ranks fifth with 17 even-strength goals. Bobrovsky’s 20 wins are tied for the third most in the NHL, while his 2.45 goals-against average is fifth amongst goaltenders with at least 20 games played.

Notes –
Focusing On What’s Gone Right
At the end of the day, it’s a results-driven business.

It’s six straight defeats for the Kings, 0-3-3, the longest stretch of consecutive losses since 2021.

If you look at the games, it’s been five one-goal defeats, three of which have come in overtime or the shootout. The Kings have played stretches of good hockey, combined with mistakes that have led to goals against in key moments. It’s easy to focus on the second half of that sentence, because, well, six defeats. This morning, the Kings tried to lean a bit into the first half, though. There are some good things in the game and they’re trying to embrace that.

“We had a long meeting today, we watched a lot of the good stuff we’re doing,” defenseman Drew Doughty said this morning. “Usually, you focus on just the bad stuff you’re doing, the mistakes you’re making. Today was one of the first times during this stretch where we were watching some good stuff we were doing, to get our confidence back up and see that we are playing well at times and we’re just not finishing the deal.”

Naturally, the decisions of which clips to show the group starts with the coaching staff.

McLellan understands the balance between the two areas. One one hand, the Kings have just three points from their last six games and this is the NHL. It’s points that matter. It hasn’t just been six clunkers, though. The focus from the staff today included a lot of what’s gone well, with a hope that those areas continue. The hope is to see what’s gone well continue, while building towards fixing what hasn’t gone well.

“At the end of the day, we’re results-based and the standings dictate that, so as you move higher or lower, it’s based on on the score at the end of the night, but with that being said, there are some things that we’re doing well as a team,” McLellan said. “When you’re in one like we are right now, they have to be reminded that there are aspects of the game that are going fairly good, that we don’t have to cheat and give any of that back, and then give them an idea of areas to improve. So, we approached the day that way and hopefully they take that and they apply it and we improve in the areas that we need to.”

Coming off the game in Tampa Bay, McLellan felt the Kings were better than the were in Game 1 of this trip in Washington. Doughty had similar thoughts and added a focus on consistency and seeing out games with leads. Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov was, generally, happy with the way the team played, but felt that the “little details” in crucial moments are what need to be fixed.

“The way we played pretty much the whole game, we just have to fix some of the little details and I think we should be fine,” Gavrikov said. “I think we played a really good game, we’ve just got to keep going and find that momentum.”

For McLellan, he highlighted team pace throughout the game, as well as zone entries and key shot blocks as being positives from the Tampa Bay game.

“I thought we had some pace through the neutral zone, I thought our entries were better and we blocked more shots than we did, at least desperate shots – sometimes that’s not always a good sign because you’ve got to be in your end to block them, but when we needed to, it was a good thing,” McLellan added. “We got the lead, didn’t finish it. I thought our penalty kill was outstanding against a lethal power play, we’ll need that again here tonight, they’re on fire right now. So there were there were some positives.”

The other side of that is the mistakes. A turnover in the neutral zone on the first goal against and a mis-defended play off the rush on the second. As Gavrikov said, small details in the game. Those have to be corrected and the Kings believe they can make the necessary changes going forward.

Managing Leads
Over the course of these six games, the Kings have held a two-goal lead on three separate occasions. Edmonton, Detroit and Tampa Bay. In each of those games, they’ve lost in either overtime or a shootout, their only three points in total over that stretch.

This is a team that was automatic in the those moments over the first two months of the season.

It wasn’t even just that a two-goal lead would hold up, it was that a two-goal lead became a three-goal lead more often than not. A one-goal lead, while always delicate, always felt safe. It felt like an insurance goal was always more likely than a game-tying goal. Right now, those scales have shifted. The Kings are losing those two-goal leads, as well as a pair of one-goal leads against Washington to start the trip.

Easier said than done, but it’s an area of the game the Kings know they need to fix. So, what’s gone wrong in those scenarios?

The Kings don’t believe that it’s been a mentality issue, though there have been instances where they feel they’ve backed off too much in certain situations. Mentality, to me, is a pointed effort towards doing something. If it’s happening, it’s involuntary, not anything the Kings are directly doing by choice.

“Every single team in this league, when you’re up by a few goals in the third period, obviously you go into that saying we’ve got to get another goal, we’ve got to keep playing for it, but it’s just human nature to sit back and the other team steps on the gas pedal a little bit more,” Doughty said this morning. “It happens in every single sport and it’s something we’ve always had to deal with and I know we’re going to get better at it. I know we have the team in here to do it and the leadership here to do it. We’re going to get better at it.”

There’s also the notion of simply being able to win these types of games, with or without the insurance goals.

Doughty has said in the past that the Kings have always been a team that’s built to win games 2-1 or 3-2. In his mind, they shouldn’t have to score 4 or 5 goals to be successful. Right now, they’re playing in those tight games but they haven’t been able to close them out. Earlier in the season, they didn’t really find themselves in a position to need to win games 3-2. Right now, they do.

In speaking with McLellan this morning, he hasn’t seen the same problems, game-to-game, when discussing 2-0 leads that have come and gone. Dating back even further, to the game on Long Island back on December 9, he’s seen a variety of different things factor into the results.

“I don’t,” he said, when asked if he feels there is any mentality change with a two-goal lead. “We’ve had a few of them obviously and we do spend time reviewing those situations and what happened, what didn’t happen. I thought leading into the first one, going all the way back a month ago, that was just careless, sloppy and probably a little bit of arrogance on our behalf. After that, mistakes came in many different ways, right from 4-on-4 faceoffs to penalty kill, where we don’t get it out off a won faceoff, I think there’s a lot of different patterns or elements into that.”

A two-goal lead in today’s NHL has probably never felt less safe than it does right now. As McLellan concluded with, it’s something the Kings have done to other teams along the way and until you get what feels like five or six goals, a lead doesn’t feel safe anymore.

Regardless, though, it’s an area that has to uptick.

Doughty and McLellan both feel that it will. Should the Kings find themselves in that position tonight, it’ll be a stern test to hold it against the defending Eastern Conference champions, who enter this game on a heater of a winning streak. It’s something that has to change in order to halt the run the Kings are currently on.

Another 7 PM / 4 PM start tonight, as the Kings take on Florida for the final time this season. A tight one in Los Angeles when these teams met back in November. Will see how Round 2 goes here in a bit.