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News & Notes – Doughty, Kempe begin 4 Nations Prep + Englund to Nashville, Copley to Ontario

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Happy Monday, Insiders!

Sharing a few updates here on this Monday afternoon, the first day of the official NHL 4 Nations Face-off break.

First things first, the Kings have two players and two staff members participating in that tournament. Adrian Kempe was selected as an original member of Team Sweden, while Drew Doughty was selected as an injury replacement for Team Canada. Doughty joins Head Equipment Manager Darren Granger on the Canadian team, while Goaltending Coach Mike Buckley will be a part of the staff with Team USA.

For Doughty and Kempe, today marked the first practice that they traded in the black and white of the Kings for the colors of their respective national teams.

Doughty was the first to practice, with Team Canada hitting the ice this morning in Montreal for their first skate together. Doughty was on a defensive pairing with Shea Theodore of the Vegas Golden Knights. With Doughty’s regular number 8 taken, Doughty will wear number 89 at the tournament, as a 1989 birth year. Saw an 89 Canada bag in the bowels of Crypto.com Arena on Saturday evening, so I suppose that clears that up.

Lot of talk after the game on Saturday about what role Doughty might have with Team Canada. As pointed out during his media scrum, Doughty has started international tournaments in the past in a lower role and taken on more responsibility as tournaments have progressed. Though he was the injury replacement, he didn’t skate as the seventh defenseman today, listed as the right-sided blueliner on the third pairing, going off of how Hockey Canada wrote them out. On Team Canada, a third pairing would be the top pairing on just about any NHL team. Such is life at a tournament like this. Skating along Theodore gives Doughty an extremely gifted partner with two-way ability who could mesh well. Early days, naturally, but a bit of news for us on a quiet Monday.

For Kempe, he and his Team Sweden teammates hit the ice for their first practice later in the day. It’ll be Doughty versus Kempe in the first game of the tournament on Wednesday evening in Montreal, the first time the two have ever played against each other beyond just camp scrimmages and drills, something Kempe said he’s pretty excited to do.

For Kempe, he skated today on the team’s first forward line, alongside Elias Pettersson at center and Filip Forsberg on the right.

Thinking of this tournament as a potential breakout opportunity for Kempe on a wider scale. With 25 goals this season, his fourth straight season at that mark or higher, Kempe has certainly garnered the love here in Los Angeles. He was voted as the team’s most-valuable player by the local media last season, a nod to the appreciation for his game here in Southern California. That hasn’t quite translated, though, to accolades on a national or international basis. Just one Swedish player – Kempe’s childhood friend William Nylander – has more goals than Kempe’s 25 this season. Since the start of the 2021-22 season, Kempe has scored at a 36-goal pace over 82 games. He’s developed from effective player to high-caliber scorer.

Perhaps the player we see day in and day out in Los Angeles will get a bit of wider-scale attention over these next handful of days.

More on Kempe and Doughty to come as the tournament gets underway.

Photo by Vitor Munhoz/4NFO/World Cup of Hockey via Getty Images

On the Kings front, defenseman Andreas Englund was placed on waivers yesterday afternoon. Today, Englund was claimed by the Nashville Predators. Additionally, goaltender Pheonix Copley has been assigned to Ontario, after he was recalled to the Kings on an emergency basis to serve as the backup goaltender to David Rittich in Saturday’s game versus Anaheim.

Copley’s move was obviously expected. With no NHL games for two weeks, he will re-join the Reign, who are not on break, to tandem with Erik Portillo as he has for the bulk of the season to date. For Englund, this was a move that felt like it was coming for some time. Numbers game. 12 forwards and 9 defensemen, even for a team that likes to play 11F/7D regularly, is just not sustainable for more than a couple of weeks. I personally was expecting this move to come when Drew Doughty returned from injury. The Kings ultimately rode things out with the group they had and today, they’ll finally make that move with Englund heading to the Reign for the first time since he signed a two-year contract with the organization last summer.

For Englund, he played 82 games a season ago. What he brings, though, was an area the Kings targeted in other ways this summer. With players like Joel Edmundson, Tanner Jeannot and Warren Foegele added into the mix, the Kings have a lot more of that toughness in their lineup than they did last year. LD3 was a position the Kings sought to upgrade over the summer and they did so with the veteran Edmundson, who has assumed a larger role in the lineup than initially expected, with Drew Doughty and Mikey Anderson both missing time. What that has done is left Englund on the outside looking in for the bulk of the season, playing in just 11 total games. His underlying numbers were actually a little bit better this season but with Doughty returning to the group and the emergence and trust the coaching staff has in Jacob Moverare, Englund becomes the odd-man out. Good character guy and a well-liked teammate. On the NHL depth chart, though, he found himself outside of the Top-8 right now and with Anderson set to re-join the team for practice next week, that gives the Kings their eight right now.

Wouldn’t expect any sort of corresponding roster move at least for awhile, if there is one at all. Right now, no need for the Kings to carry more than 22 on their active roster, with their next three games coming on home ice. Not expecting the Kings to assign Brandt Clarke to the AHL during this break and no other player is waiver-exempt. Carrying 22 would also allow the Kings to continue to bank cap space for a potential trade closer to the deadline. The salary cap calculates on a daily basis and every dollar could count for a team that could potentially look to add to the group in advance of a playoff push.

Happy Trails, Engy. Wishing the best of luck to a really good guy in Nashville.

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