Following a long travel day on Tuesday, the Kings will officially open their final stretch of training camp with an 11am EST practice in Quebec City this morning. Currently, the team is scheduled for one additional practice while in Canada, along with games against non-traditional preseason opponents in the Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers.
As reported several days ago, management opted to whittle the roster down to just 26 players for this portion of camp. Here’s what coach Jim Hiller has to work with:
Laferriere – Kopitar – Kempe
Jeannot – Danault – Moore
Fiala – Byfield – Foegele
Turcotte – Thomas – Lewis
Lee – Studnicka – Fagemo
Anderson – Spence
Edmundson – Burroughs
Gavrikov – Spence
Englund – Jones
Rittich
Kuemper
Copley
Three players will need to be removed from the above list by next Monday morning.
The Easy One, Goaltending
One of the three cuts from 26 players down to the league maximum of 23 will be easy. Pheonix Copley is expected to eventually go on waivers, for the purpose of assigning him to AHL Ontario. This leaves re-acquired goaltender Darcy Kuemper in the No. 1 position and David Rittich as his backup. However, given how taxing it was for Cam Talbot to carry such a heavy workload during the first half of last season, it will be interesting to monitor how Hiller uses his netminders early on. Now 34-years-old, Kuemper is coming off a 2023-24 season in which he only played 33 games. Will he get to 50 this year? We shall see.
Listen to Kuemper on Kings Of The Podcast here.
Doughty and the Defense
Caleb Jones was ultimately selected over Jacob Moverare for the extra spot on defense that opened up following Drew Doughty’s injury. While the latter of the two options has proven to be an effective fill-in when called up to the NHL over the past few years, Jones experience and versatility likely won out here. The organization still values Moverare, as evidenced by his new two-year contract. However, with Doughty out, Hiller is likely looking for every edge he can get, and Jones (a left shot) has played the right side with more regularity in recent years.
There are still a few decisions to be made on the blueline, though, and those choices will also affect what happens up front with the forwards (more on that in a minute).
Question one is, will the Kings opt for seven or eight defensemen to start the season? With most signs pointing to a full group of eight — perhaps even more so now than ever before because it gives Hiller multiple options with Doughty out — this group of names would most likely be the eight they go with for opening night. And in that case, there would only be room for one additional forward (giving the Kings a total of 13 forwards).
If Hiller and GM Rob Blake decided to only go with seven defensemen, would Jones be the odd man out? Sure, it could be Andreas Englund. However, after playing all 82 games last season, he’s another player who brings value in other ways. Having a defining charateristic can be imporant in these types of situations.
The biggest decision among the rearguards isn’t about who is the seventh or eighth defenseman on the depth chart. It’s really about how Hiller will arrange his top two defensive pairs. A reasonable argument could be made for Mikey Anderson to be paired with Jordan Spence, Brandt Clarke, or Kyle Burroughs. Each comes with a compelling narrative of why they should be placed on that top pairing, but also has a potential adverse impact on the second and third pairings.
Hiller will have two games remaining to get things sorted out. It’s also worth noting, LA’s bench boss debuted an Anderson-Spence pairing on Monday and seemed to like the results.
“I thought those two played really well together,” Hiller said following LA’s 4-0 win in Anaheim on Monday. “It’s not just me [either]. We were talking in the coach’s office, we’re really happy with that pair tonight. I thought Jordan was a little bit more controlled; sometimes he can get himself wandering all over the place. I thought he was just a little bit more controlled tonight. And [it was] Mikey’s best game. They were good. I thought they looked really good.”
One thing assumed is that even if Clarke ends up on the third pairing to start out, he’ll still be getting power play time — and maybe even penalty kill action too. Thus, his minutes per game won’t reflect that of a ‘typical’ third pairing guy.
Forward Thinking
“There aren’t a lot of spots available,” Hiller surmised just a few days ago.
And that’s true, as the top three lines are accounted for. All indications are Trevor Lewis, Akil Thomas, and Alex Turcotte will also make the final roster. That leaves either one or two extra forward spots available. Again, if the Kings begin the year carrying eight defensemen, there’s only room for a 13th forward.
Sammy Fagemo is the easy one, as he would require waivers to go back to Ontario. Coming off a season where he scored nearly every game played in the AHL, the team may be interested in giving him another look. He also is one of the rare right shots on the team.
As Hiller joked earlier this week, “You shoot right around here, and you’ll get a chance to play some pretty good minutes.”
That comment came when talking about center Jack Studnicka, another right shot. However, it’s still applicable in general. LA is short on right shots and that could play into any decision here.
Standing 6-foot-1, Studnicka signed a two-way contract with LA over the summer and brought 107 games of NHL experience with him, including 17 in San Jose last season. He hasn’t looked out of place in the few preseason games he’s played for Hiller and the Kings thus far.
Then, there’s Andre Lee. He’s knocking on the door of making the NHL club. Like many young players at this time of the year, he may end of getting squeezed out in a numbers game heading into opening night. However, that doesn’t mean anything long-term, as the prevailing thought is that he’ll be up at some point this season.
“Even when the season gets started, there will be competition to be the 12th forward or the 13th forward, or the 14th forward,” Hiller added. “To be on the team there’s some competition, more competition than I thought there would be.”
From what we’ve gathered, one of the reasons Studnicka was taken to Quebec City over Sammy Helenius is the latter wasn’t penciled in to play either of the final two exhibition games. So, if the door is still cracked open for Lee, what does he have to do to earn a spot?
“I don’t even know if it’s what he has to do beyond continuing how he’s played from the drop of the puck in the first training camp game,” Hiller told Mayor’s Manor. “I think [he and Helenius have] probably been the two most consistent forwards, as far as ‘pretty easy to see what their game is’ and they don’t deviate. It’s the same, it’s consistent, which is something that coaches like. So, I wouldn’t necessarily say they have to do anything different than they’ve done. But the guys they’re in competition with, maybe those are the guys that have to be more consistent in that way.”
Does the fact that Lee would give a little size to that fourth line help play into the decision in any way?
“I think it’s the overall package,” Hiller continued. “Sometimes bigger guys maybe don’t skate as well, so you have to take all things into consideration. But one thing we know is that size is difficult to play against, whether that’s up front or on D. Size is difficult just because people are in the way. And when you add a little bit of snarl and some physical play to the size, now you’re talking about a hockey player with some upside.”
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