Practice 2/6 – Last Skate Before 4 Nations + Goals, Chances, Confidence & Penalty Shots

Practice day, Insiders!

Wouldn’t call today’s skate grueling by any stretch. The Kings hit the ice for their final practice before the 4 Nations Faceoff. Morning skate tomorrow, games on Friday and Saturday evening and then the Kings have earned a much-needed and well-deserved break.

The Kings hit the ice for around 20-30 minutes in total.

The group looked largely the same as we saw last night. 12 forwards, eight defensemen and two goaltenders. As was the case over the last couple of days, defenseman Mikey Anderson was not on the ice with the group, skating on his own before practice. Anderson is status quo right now. At this point, probably not expecting to see him in the game tomorrow versus Dallas or on Saturday against Anaheim. It’s not a zero-percent chance, but feels like at this point, while it’s not considered to be a serious injury, it won’t be rushed or risked for those two games. Assuming that is the case, we’ll check in for an update during or coming out of the break.

For today’s here’s the alignment we saw from a group coming off of a 6-3 win last night over Montreal –

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

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

Kuemper
Rittich

Don’t look now but that just might be the lineup of an offensive juggernaut. The Kings are averaging five goals per game in the month of February after averaging 1.69 goals per game in January. Sample size, shmample size.

“I think we’ve pushed out on the breakouts a little bit more, we have our forwards exiting the zone, I think you saw a little more speed,” Hiller said. “We’ve definitely had more rush chanced, as far as the overall makeup of the chances, rush, faceoff and o-zone. I’d like to think that’s a little bit of the fact that we’ve put a little bit more emphasis on him.”

A six spot last night against Montreal which followed a 4-2 win over Carolina. Not too shabby. Perhaps the best part of the offensive output was seeing so many names that had gone quiet get in on the action.

Forward Phillip Danault had just one goal in January and had two points in Carolina. Trevor Moore didn’t score in January and now has goals in consecutive games for the first time this season. Warren Foegele scored once in January and matched that with a penalty-shot goal last night, adding an assist as well. Alex Turcotte snapped an eight-game scoreless streak with an assist, while Anze Kopitar collected an assist for the first time in six games. The Kings got just three goals from their defensemen in December and three more in January. Vladislav Gavrikov and Brandt Clarke made it two in February last night alone.

More to come on the Fiala/Byfield/Laferriere line but Fiala has four goals in two games and Byfield has five assists, while Laferriere chipped in with a primary helper in last night’s win. Lots of good signs of guys getting on the board. You don’t know which goal can end a slump. Kings have several slumps in play, so a good sign the offense is spread around right now.

Just lots of encouraging signs for the club after these last two games. The Kings offensive struggles are well-documented, but right now, you can feel tension relieved, sticks being gripped a little bit less tighter. Confidence beginning to return. While two games doesn’t change the month prior, in my opinion, two games can go a long way for the little things that impact how players feel and play. Right now, the little things are starting to turn and the output thus far has been positive.

“For most of us, it’s been a tough stretch, there’s no denying that,” Turcotte said. “I think the biggest thing is not losing our confidence, still trying to make plays and eventually they’re going to go in. This happens to everybody at some point, every season, to every team, most. You just have to stick with it and keep doing the things that made you successful and you’ll get rewarded. If you stick with it, good things will happen.”

One thing I really liked last night is that while the Kings got their typical “bodies to the net, pucks to the net” goals, they also got a couple of individual moments to go their way as well. I look at Foegele’s penalty shot goal as a prime example. Jim Hiller felt it was the most important of the six goals the Kings scored last night. The Kings just haven’t converted a ton of those this season.

I don’t know if breakaways are specifically tracked anywhere. What I found, though, is that the Kings have had the fewest unpressured slot shots this season in the NHL, with the seventh-lowest shooting percentage. By my calculations, when you combine those two totals, the Kings rank 30th with 20 goals scored in those situations this season. It’s not a perfect or exact comparison, but I’m not sure that exists. I think there’s correlation though. The Kings haven’t had a ton of offensive success converting in those moments this season. Last night, Foegele scored a big one.

I wouldn’t exactly consider Foegele to be a breakaway savant. He said that the last penalty shot attempt of his career came as a rookie in the AHL. He did not score. He had never taken a penalty shot or a shootout attempt in nearly 500 games played in the NHL until last night. Now he’s 1-for-1.

“The timing of it, the way the game had gone, I thought we got a little flat in that time, they had more of a push, so I just thought that the time of it was important,” Hiller said. “I liked the goal. It was simple, it was a breakout rim, win a wall battle, slash across and use your speed. I liked that part of it and the fact that it was a penalty shot, the pressure is on. Our breakaways and penalty shots haven’t been that great to this point this year, so it was really nice to see that.”

So, good signs.

Difficult back-to-back to finish things off for the Kings, against two teams that are extremely well rested. Dallas is a challenge under every circumstance and while the Kings have gotten the better of Anaheim more often than not of late, the Ducks will have three days in between games to rest up. Will be two tough tests at home to go into the break. With a split, the Kings will retain the NHL’s best winning percentage on home ice. More to come on that front tomorrow.

Working as well on a feature on the Fiala/Byfield/Laferriere line. Electric from those three over the last couple games. Will have that finished up by late-afternoon/early-evening. Lots of potential there and talked with all three players about why it’s worked against Carolina and Montreal.