It’s a new week and the LA Kings are back on the road, as they’ve traveled to Nashville for what will be a busy week. After Monday’s contest with the Predators, coach Jim Hiller will need to have his squad ready to play again on Tuesday for a back-to-back, but also the third game in four days. And it doesn’t get in any easier from there, with games on Thursday and Saturday too. This will mark a stretch where LA plays four games in six nights. From last Saturday to next Saturday, they’re playing five games in eight days. Plus, there is some travel in there. as well.
Like any good elephant eating exercise, the Kings will need to take this one bite at a time. First up, tonight on Broadway — or Bridgestone Arena, for the out of towners.
Hiller’s team is coming off a week where they handily took down the first place Golden Knights yet couldn’t summon victories against the Sharks or Blackhawks. Which now brings us to a showdown between two Western Conference teams who are both searching for some sort of consistency.
During the offseason, Predators GM Barry Trotz was rather aggressive in signing big-name free agents to boost his club’s potential rise up the standings. Adding forwards Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault created major headlines. However, the script hasn’t gone according to plan thus far, with Nashville sitting in last place among Central Division teams.
Shifting over to Los Angeles, it doesn’t really matter who the opponent is on any given night. In fact, Hiller said as much following Saturday’s shootout loss, noting he doesn’t spend much time thinking about that. Instead, the prime focus of his team right now is to find a way to put together a full 60-minute effort each night. They’ve proven they can beat good teams but have unfortunately also shown they don’t bring their A-game to every puck drop.
We’re not expecting very many lineup changes for this one. Like last game, Hiller may look to his fourth line and/or third defensive pair should he want to mix things up a bit. Andre Lee should be expected to draw back in either tonight or tomorrow in Minnesota. Trevor Lewis remains an option to sit out for one of the back-to-back contests, as was the original plan last week when Akil Thomas was making his season debut.
On defense, Hiller has been largely rotating Kyle Burroughs, Andreas Englund, and Caleb Jones — something we asked him about recently to get a little context for the various moves.
“It’s a little bit of everything,” Hiller began. “It’s going to be a little bit home and road dependent, where we get the last change. You saw Mikey and [Gavrikov] at home, in particular, matched up against the other team’s best lines. So, there are some different things.
He went on to add, “Sometimes, when you’re playing a big team or even a bigger guy — Vegas goes to the net front as well as anybody — [those] factors go into it.”
We’ll have to see closer to game time what that means vs. Nashville. For now, we’re projecting Jones back in.
With the back-to-back games, that usually leads to a split among the goaltenders, with each getting one start. No doubt, Minnesota is the tougher opponent right now, so will Hiller save Darcy Kuemper for the Wild or will he go back to Kuemper tonight for a redemption game, if you will, after a mediocre effort from him on Saturday?
Statistically Speaking
— It will be a return of sorts for Alex Turcotte to Nashville. He scored his first career NHL goal there last season against the Preds.
— Tanner Jeannot will also be suiting up to face his former team, having spent parts of three seasons in Nashville. During that stretch, he racked up 62 points in 152 games for the organization.
— Second-year pro Alex Laferriere continues to lead the Kings in goals, having found the back of the net four times over his last three games. As part of his performance, Laferriere collected his first power-play goal and seventh even-strength goal (EVG) of the campaign. Only Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov (9) and Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl (8) have more even-strength goals in the league than Laferriere’s seven.
— Defenseman Brandt Clarke leads the team in assists with 10 and sits tied for second in points with 11 (1G, 10A). He skates into Bridgestone Arena with seven points over his last five games.
— On the Nashville side of things, Filip Forsberg has nine points (4G, 5A) in his last 15 contests against Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Steven Stamkos has points in 10 of his last 12 games vs. the Kings.
— Preds goalie Juuse Saros is 6-2-1 against the Kings in his career, including a .924 save percentage and 2.52 goals against average.
— Extra hockey may be the recipe for a win by LA. In their last 29 meetings, the Kings have won 11 times. However, the Predators have lost only four times in regulation to the Kings over that stretch (18-4-7).
— As noted in this section previously, we’re tracking a rather fun stat throughout the 2024-25 campaign. Our MM graphics team had an almost uncanny ability to randomly select a player for our daily lineup article last year, and then said player would seem to score a goal. Thus far in 2024-25, the Kings have played 12 games, and the player featured has scored six times, for a rather impressive 50% conversion rate. A goal from Jeannot tonight would push it up to 54%.
— And ICYMI on twitter yesterday:
Kings Projected Lineup vs. Predators
If there are any key changes during morning skate or pregame warmups, this article will be updated.
Turcotte – Kopitar – Kempe
Fiala – Danault – Moore
Foegele – Byfield – Laferriere
Jeannot – Lewis – Thomas
Anderson – Gavrikov
Edmundson – Clarke
Jones – Spence
Rittich (starter)
Kuemper
Likely scratches: (F) Lee (D) Burroughs, Englund
Key Game Info
Puck drop is set for 5:00 pm Pacific Time and will be televised locally by FanDuel Sports Network. Additionally, a Kings radio feed is available on the ESPN LA app (which is the new home for Kings radio this season, they’ve moved off of the iHeart platform).
More on the ongoing TV situation here.
Across the Ice
Nashville is coming off a 5-2 win over Colorado on Saturday. Here’s how they lined up for that contest:
Forsberg – O’Reilly – Marchessault
Stamkos – Parssinen- Nyquist
Jankowski- Novak – Evangelista
L’Heureux – Sissons- Smith
Skjei – Josi
Lauzon – Carrier
Del Gaizo – Schenn
Saros
On This Day in Kings History
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