2/28 Preview – Doughty expected to play + Fiala, Byfield, Kempe line, Backend Balance, Kings in Dallas

WHO: Los Angeles Kings (31-17-8) @ Dallas Stars (37-19-2)
WHAT: 2024-25 Regular-Season Game
WHEN: Friday, February 28 @ 5:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: American Airlines Center – Dallas, TX
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: FanDuel Sports Network – AUDIO – ESPN LA App – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The Kings begin a three-game roadtrip this evening, as they visit the Dallas Stars for the first of five consecutive games in total versus the Central Division.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings won the first two games of the season against Dallas on home ice and the two teams will conclude their season series this evening in Texas.

Forward Warren Foegele leads the Kings this season with three points (2-1-3) from two games played against the Stars. Foegele scored in both games at home this season, a pair of Kings victories. Forwards Kevin Fiala, Tanner Jeannot and Anze Kopitar each have a goal and an assist in the season series to date.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held an optional morning skate today, despite not practicing yesterday on the travel day.

Goaltender Darcy Kuemper did skate and was off first today, pointing towards his return to the net tonight as the projected starter against Dallas. Kuemper, who started the 3-2 victory back in December, has a lifetime record of 9-6-3 against Dallas, with a .915 save percentage and a 2.75 goals-against average.

No rushes today with the optional, but expecting the following in tonight’s game –

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

Anderson – Gavrikov
Edmundson – Doughty
Moverare – Spence
Clarke

First things first, expecting defenseman Drew Doughty back in the lineup after a one-game absence. He missed Wednesday’s overtime loss to Vancouver with a lower-body injury. Nothing particularly serious, clearly, as he’s back in tonight.

Up front, while the same 11 forwards are expected to dress, look for some mixing and matching with the forward lines. We’ve seen the trio of Kevin Fiala, Quinton Byfield and Adrian Kempe together at times over the last two games and those three should start together tonight. They’ve combined for a few goals and some solid splits, helping spark comeback efforts versus Vegas and Vancouver. More on that trio below.

STARS VITALS: After playing it first three games out of the break on the East Coast, Dallas returns home to begin a four-game homestand this evening.

Per Sam Nestler of DLLS Stars, here’s how the hosts lined up yesterday in practice, expected to be the same in toinght’s game –

Stars practice lines:

Robertson – Hintz – Stankoven
Marchment – Duchene – Granlund
Benn – Johnston – Dadonov
Blackwell – Steel – Bourque – Bäck

Harley – Lyubushkin
Lindell – Ceci
Smith – Dumba

Oettinger
DeSmith

** No Bichsel

— Sam Nestler (@samnestler) February 27, 2025

Dallas is on a five-game winning streak in this building versus the Kings, who haven’t won here since January 2019. In that time, Stars forwards Roope Hintz (3-4-7) and Jason Robertson (2-5-7) lead the way with seven points apiece against the Kings at American Airlines Center.

Goaltender Jake Oettinger is set to get the start against the Kings here on home ice, while defenseman Liam Bishel is not expected to play due to injury.

Storyline Of The Day – Starting How They Finished
On Monday, the Kings trailed 2-1 after 40 minutes. On Wednesday, it was a 2-0 hole. In the back half of the second period, Jim Hiller made a specific change to his forward lines in both games, a change that seemed to spark the team’s comeback efforts. On Monday, 2-1 down became a 5-2 win. On Wednesday, 2-0 became 2-2, ultimately falling short in a 3-2 overtime loss.

The change? Forward Adrian Kempe moved onto a line with Kevin Fiala and Quinton Byfield, creating one of the fastest and most creative lines in this team’s arsenal.

In just shy of 15 minutes together 5-on-5 over the last two games, here’s what the raw totals say, per Natural Stat Trick.

Shot Attempts – 23 For, 12 Against
Scoring Chances – 10 For, 5 Against
High-Danger Chances – 6 For, 2 Against
Goals – 3 For, 0 Against

That’ll do.

Granted, gameflow in both situations was slanted towards a Kings team pushing to score and an opponent protecting a lead. So, the sample size is extremely small and the situation isn’t necessarily sustainable. As Hiller said this morning, the circumstances will be different from the start and that line will have to “play a certain way” to be successfull

However, it would be hard to have watched those three player together and not get excited. Three fast players, who not only skate fast but play fast. Kempe is the best natural shooter on the team and Fiala the most creative. Byfield’s combination of size and speed is unmatched and after honing in on the defensive end in 2024, he’s playing all 200 feet in 2025, including production at the offensive end. It’s that combination of abilities that can make them extremely dangerous offensively.

“I think with us three, we can do anything,” Fiala said. “We’re fast players, so that means rush plays are there for sure, but also down low, we’re strong on pucks. We can do both and hopefully we can do it tonight.”

Fiala pointed to several different attributes that could make their line successful.

Speed. A shooting mindset, while making the pass that’s there, but not overthinking situations. Puck retrievals. Work ethic. Listed a number of things and “it’s working” when they focus on those things.

Now, is this the best way forward for the Kings, longer term? Not sure if it is or not. It loads the team’s two most dangerous individual creators in Kempe and Fiala on the same line. Let’s not forget how much success Kempe and Anze Kopitar had together in the first half of the season. As Kempe said, after separating last season for a bit, they went back together and were extremely productive again. It’s about creating the best four lines, not the best one line.

There’s also the impending trade deadline and external reports aren’t exactly vague. Most have the Kings targeting a forward and if the Kings do acquire that player, his best fit within the group is also important. For now, the Kings have who they have and it’s going to be exciting to see what that line can potentially do later on tonight. They’ll start together and we’ll see where things progress from there.

3 To Watch For –
– Sounds like for Drew Doughty, he’s all good to go for tonight.

Drew Doughty expecting to play tonight in Dallas.

Didn’t disclose specifics, but called his injury something he’s just going to have to manage throughout the season.

Said he feels good though and is ready to go tonight.

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) February 28, 2025

In talking with Doughty this morning, while he didn’t give specifics, what kept him out of Wednesday’s game against Vancouver is something he’ll just have to manage all season. Understands that and he’s prepared for it. I think if Wednesday was a playoff game he’d have played. But there’s also a bigger picture here for him and the Kings.

“Sometimes, when you’re feeling a certain way in a certain spot, you start compensating, you can affect other parts of your body, so I think that was the main reason why we didn’t try to give it a go,” Doughty said. “I was pretty disappointed that I couldn’t play, but sometimes you’ve just got to listen to the professionals and that’s what I did.”

Doughty added he “feels good” tonight and he’s ready to go against the Stars. Expecting him to be available, without restrictions.

– One other note on Doughty. Now that he is back, and Mikey Anderson is back, I think the Kings are looking to more evenly distribute the minutes throughout the Top 4 than we’ve seen in past seasons.

I think the Utah game is the ideal game script. Anderson, Doughty, Edmundson and Gavrikov all between 21 and 23 minutes. Depending on the game, could slant more in one direction or the other, but all four of those guys will get theirs. Hiller said he liked having all four of those guys in that range.

While Doughty loves the challenge of facing the other team’s best, the challenge of playing 30 minutes, he also appreciates that having Anderson/Gavrikov together can help lighten the load a little bit.

“It’s kind of nice not to have to worry about the top team’s matchups every night, like I have for the past I don’t even know how many years,” Doughty said. “Might free me up a little bit.”

See how it plays out in practice, but I think on paper, the Kings would love to see that balance continue.

– Lastly, I wrote this yesterday but I see this game as a big one for the Kings.

Not to say it’s a must win, because that’s the most over-used term in the game. But the Kings have not gotten results in this building over the past three seasons. Last year, the Dallas/Los Angeles matchup was extremely one-sided. Believe the Kings lost 5-1, 4-1 and 4-1 including a pair of 4-1 defeats at American Airlines Center.

“Some of my last memories of being at this place are not good ones,” Doughty said of playing in Dallas. “We need to turn that around.”

The Kings showed a lot of resilience to beat Dallas at home back in December, turning 2-0 down into a 3-2 win. They won an absolute thriller right before the break, a 5-4 shootout win at home in one of the most entertaining regular-season games in recent memory. Regardless of what happens here today, the Kings will win the season series against Dallas, but in this building they haven’t found a ton of success.

Jim Hiller pointed to the starts of games as being key. He said that Dallas “jumps you” at the start of games, especially at home, and the Kings have to be ready to handle that.

“We haven’t had success here, they jump you hard early,” Hiller said. “Wherever we’ve played them, they’ve jumped us hard early. We flipped the script the last game at Crypto, we jumped them early for the first time ever, in the first period……that’s the biggest thing for me, it’s just the start. We had a great start at home and we need a similar type of start here.”

Kings started really well earlier this month against the Stars at home. Need a similar push early in this one tonight.