Practice 11/19 – Kings Happy For Home Time + Moverare Earning His Place, Portillo “Doing Well”

Practice Day, 2 of 2.

The LA Kings are in their quietest stretch of the season to this point. The Kings last played on Saturday and they’ll play again tomorrow, before another two days without games on Thursday and Friday.

This comes after a pretty grueling start to the season, one that saw the Kings play 12 of their first 19 games on the road. Lots of flights, lots of hotels, lots of time spent away from home. The side effect of that was not a ton of practice time and not a ton of time here in the South Bay.

“It was a lot of hockey this past month and a half, quite a bit of travel too,” forward Anze Kopitar said. “To be able to sleep in your own bed for a couple of nights in a row, it’s nice and it feels pretty good with the body and the mind too.”

The Kings set the front half of this week up with a plan.

Sunday was a day off the ice, minus the team visiting local youth hockey rinks for a community appearance. More on that HERE.

Head Coach Jim Hiller said that the team laid out a two-day practice plan for yesterday’s skate and today’s, acknowledging that while it would have been nice to include Friday as well, tomorrow’s game versus Buffalo will dictate what is needed on that day. The Kings will have an optional morning skate tomorrow, followed by a day off on Thursday and a full team practice on Friday, in advance of Saturday’s 1 PM start versus Seattle.

“These two days, [Monday and Tuesday], we planned out and we’ll take it from there, because the game will always dictate something,” Hiller said. “We know what we want to hit, we’ve talked about it, breakouts, o-zone play, it’s pretty specific, among everything else that we want to touch on.”

Hearing Hiller talk about breakouts is not surprising.

Against Colorado last week, the Kings broke the puck out well in the first period but struggled from that point, getting hemmed in throughout the second period, which set them back after a good start, ultimately costing the team points on the road. They executed better in just about every facet of the game against Detroit on Saturday, but still, with ample practice time here this week, it’s areas like that, along with a dedicated time for special teams, that the Kings are committed to focusing on during their practice time.

For today’s skate, the Kings aligned as they did yesterday, which was the same way they looked against Detroit on Saturday.

Turcotte – Kopitar – Kempe
Foegele – Byfield – Laferriere
Moore – Danault – Fiala
Jeannot – Helenius – Thomas – Lewis

Anderson – Gavrikov
Edmundson – Clarke
Moverare – Spence
Englund – Burroughs

Rittich / Portillo

The Kings played well on Saturday.

It was a tired opponent, with Detroit on the West Coast, playing a back-to-back after losing in Anaheim. Tomorrow’s game against Buffalo won’t be the same luxury, with the Sabres off since Saturday. Buffalo has been up and down this season, coming in one game below .500 at 8-9-1, but this is the team that stuck it to the Kings on Opening Night, with only Darcy Kuemper’s heroics in Western New York earning the Kings a Game 1 victory. Buffalo was the better team in that game, though, and playing them tomorrow evening will provide a test the Kings should be eager to pass.

In terms of alignment, I’d probably expect the same group in tomorrow’s game. The only position I could see potentially changing could be with regards to Akil Thomas on the fourth line. On the blueline, the Kings were very, very happy with Jacob Moverare’s play in his NHL season debut on Saturday.

“Mo really stuck out as far as having a good game, I thought he was probably one of our better defensemen of the six on the night,” Hiller said. “So, first game, the first couple are the easiest, but if he can do that game after game, maybe he doesn’t have to be that good, but just be solid, but he’ll get a good run [in the lineup].”

In net, look for David Rittich to continue as the starting goaltender versus Buffalo.

The Kings have gotten their first NHL-level look at Erik Portillo here over the last few days, after Portillo’s recall from the Ontario Reign on Wednesday. Hiller is a guy who trusts his goaltending coach, for the most part, with the primary recommendations with regards to who starts. He certainly has a feel and an input on the situation, watching a player like Portillo in higher-stress situations in practice, seeing the compete level and what not, but it’s goaltending coach Mike Buckley who is spending more 1-on-1 time with Portillo, seeing how he’s adjusting from AHL competition to NHL competition and working with him day-to-day.

“I’ve asked Bucks how he’s doing and he’s said he’s doing well,” Hiller said. “It’s clearly an adjustment when you come up, shooters are better, quicker releases and that kind of thing. I just ask him how he’s doing and he said he’s doing really well, he’s happy with him.”

For now, it doesn’t sound like Portillo will get the nod against the Sabres and I’m not sure why anyone would expect otherwise.

Rittich performed at a high level on Saturday against Detroit and he’s the veteran goaltender on this team. With three days in between games, plus two more on the backend, I’d expect Rittich to start tomorrow and no reason to suggest he wouldn’t start on Saturday against Seattle as well. Then, the Kings will play four games in six days, including a back-to-back at the end with American Thanksgiving in the middle. That kind of stretch calls for two goaltenders, with Hiller, Buckley and the Kings likely to call Portillo’s name, assuming that Darcy Kuemper isn’t ready to go.

“It’s such a hard position and he, like all players, has to earn his way,” Hiller added. “The person who tells me that is Bucks, our goalie coach……I just tryst what he has to say. If he says, the time comes, who do we have to start, what’s your recommendation and if he says Ports, we’ll go through the other coaches on that, but that’s probably what we’ll end up doing. We haven’t gotten to that stage yet.”

For tomorrow, the Kings will hold an optional skate here in El Segundo, before the game versus Buffalo. Will have a full game preview up in the morning, likely confirming the above lineup. More to follow! Thanks as always, Insiders.