If you haven’t noticed, the LA Kings are rolling right now. They’re now 12-2-1 at home and are among the top five teams in the entire league when it comes to points percentage on the season. Coach Jim Hiller seems to be pushing all the right buttons, and the players are gelling together as a group.
Even so, there are a bevy of roster questions (and upcoming decisions) that are still circulating around the club heading into 2025 and the second-half of the 2024-25 campaign.
After checking in with a number of sources over the past few days, here’s what we’ve been able to gather:
Drew Doughty
Everything has to begin with Doughty. While his timeline for a return isn’t as imminent as a few others, there’s no denying that getting him back will be a huge addition to the Kings lineup. Now 35 years old, like Anze Kopitar at forward, the longtime LA fixture hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down. He’s coming off of back-to-back 50-point seasons (something he has never done at any point in his NHL career) and his 15 goals last season were the most he’s recorded since posting 16 goals way back in his second year as a pro. Following up on our previous reports here:
Doughty has resumed skating — lightly, without gear, no contact, etc. Like any player returning from a long injury, he’s still several weeks away and will need to work on his conditioning before any estimated timeline for his return is established. The fact he’s back skating is a positive sign, though.
Trevor Lewis
Let’s jump to Lewis next; and why not, he’s been linked to Doughty for most of his career anyway. In a feat that it seems has never happened before in NHL history, the veteran forward was injured in his 999th career game back on Nov. 30 against Ottawa. From what we’re hearing, he’s schedule to return to practice later this week and could play as early as Saturday when the Tampa Bay Lightning come to town. If that holds, the celebration of his 1,000th game — including a silver stick ceremony — would then take place on Wed. Jan 8 vs. Calgary, a club Lewis played the most games with outside of LA; suiting up in 162 games for the Flames during the 2021-23 seasons. No word yet if Darryl Sutter will return to town again.
Trevor Moore
He’s a wild card in all of this. Any sort of a return date for Moore has yet to be established. Officially, he’s on IR, but that was more of a roster management move, as the team needed a slot to activate Arthur Kaliyev from his AHL conditioning assignment. Because moving Moore to IR could be done retroactively, it was really akin to a paper transaction. Although he’s publicly been talked about in a ‘day-to-day’ sense, team officials have had little to offer regarding when he might actually return. Behing the scenes, it sounds like there could be an update later this week, although that isn’t concrete at the moment. Perhaps additional testing is being completed.
Arhtur Kaliyev and Beyond
And now for the elephant in the room. What’s going on with Kaliyev? We’ll try to make it short and then get into the details for those interested. In brief, there is probably a stronger possibility that Kaliyev ends up on waivers before he ever plays an NHL game this season. Could he play for the Kings soon? Sure, it’s possible — but that would almost be a worst-case scenario because it would likely mean several players were injured. With Hiller using the 11+7 configuration most nights, and with several players ahead of Kaliyev on the depth chart — not to mention the fact that he simply has played a lot of hockey over the past 12 months — the road in front of him is going to be a challenge. Yes, there was going to be a ‘clean slate’ during training camp. However, once he was injured long-term, everything changed.
Here’s a rather simple way to look at Kaliyev’s situation — put Doughty to the side for a moment (since he has the longest timeline) and focus on LA’s roster when everybody is healthy:
Turcotte – Kopitar – Kempe
Foegele – Byfield – Moore
Fiala – Danault – Laferriere
Jeannot – Helenius – Lewis
Lee – Thomas – Kaliyev
Anderson – Gavrikov
Edmundson – Clarke
Moverare – Spence
Englund – Burroughs
Rittich – Kuemper
With a 23-player roster limit in the NHL, that’s two extra players. Assigning Lee to Ontario is the easiest move because he doesn’t require waivers. There would still be one more move needed. Waiving Andreas Englund (or even Kyle Burroughs) is an option, as most teams don’t carry eight defensemen. However, with Hiller liking the 11+7 configuration, that would lead to the Kings more likely keeping an eighth defenseman in case one of the seven ‘regulars’ was injured. With Moverare already among that group, there really isn’t another NHL-ready defenseman in Ontario besides Caleb Jones.
Assuming that’s all true, the decision most likely comes down to Kaliyev, Sammy Helenius, and Akil Thomas. Sending Helenius down is easy because he doesn’t require waivers, yet the organization seems to really like having him up in the NHL.
Yes, Kaliyev could be an option on the power play, but circling back to the comments above, it’s most likely a tall task for him to leapfrog Thomas on the depth chart at this point.
Now, if Moore ends up being out for a few weeks, maybe that gives Kaliyev a little longer runway. Maybe.
When asked about Kaliyev’s situation on Sunday — and this is more reading the tea leaves than concreate facts — it sure didn’t sound like Kaliyev would be playing an NHL game sometime soon.
“His first team practice, that will be his start,” Hiller said. “The way I’m looking at it, that’ll be like day one for him. Then, we’ll see where it goes from there.”
When pressed a little further on the issue, Hiller was rather non-committal when asked if Kaliyev’s return to game action could still be three to four weeks away, if he’s just at step one.
“I don’t know,” remarked the Kings bench boss. “I don’t want to put any timelines on it with him. I hope not, but I don’t want to put any timelines on it.”
With 25 players and only 23 spots, the odds don’t seem to be in Kaliyev’s favor.
And then when Doughty returns, things won’t be any easier. Probably the only thing worth noting there is it would appear Jacob Moverare has earned his spot — leaving a roster decision at that point to come down to Burroughs or Englund.
“He’s solid; he just does what he does,” Hiller said of Moverare following Sunday night’s game. “Sometimes he doesn’t look the flashiest, so you can say, ‘What’s he getting done?’ But when you go through it, you say, what did he give up? That’s where it starts for defensemen; what did you give up? Not, what did you get? What did you give up. Moe’s usually pretty clean. I think he’s found his groove — got confidence from the coaches, got confidence from himself. He’s not questioning, am I going to be in or out? He’s really ran with it. He was alright last year; he was pretty good, but not like he’s been now.”
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