Kings hit the road for 10 days amid a 4-game skid
The Kings have taken to performing a little celebratory dance in the dressing room after victories, but of late they’ve had two left feet on game nights, having lost four consecutive matches for the first time this season.
They’ll look to get their backs off the wall, having embarked on their longest road trip of the campaign, a six-game journey that’ll unfold in just 10 days. They’ll check in and chill out at hotels in six cities, beginning with a matchup versus the Washington Capitals Sunday and concluding against the Dallas Stars on Jan. 16.
“It’s a long one. We’re going to go and play against some high, high-end teams, I think we all know that. We haven’t been away for an extended period [since] early December,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said.
Though the Kings won an NHL-record dozen straight away games to start their season, that December trip was where they set the bar and when they began to stumble beneath it. They’ve dropped three of their past five on the road and eight of their last 12 decisions overall. During the three-losses-in-three-games homestand they just completed, they twice led by two goals, only to fall in a shootout, to rival Edmonton and, most recently, to the Detroit Red Wings.
“We’re looking to build now and pull ourselves out of this. Teams are very prepared for us; they have a book on us. We have to find more players on this trip,” McLellan said.
“We’ve got to find ways to get to three [goals] before other teams get to one,” he added.
Another area McLellan said had “to be improved in these next six games on the road” was the power play. Since Dec. 20, the Kings’ man-advantage units have converted just once in 22 opportunities, a 4.6% success rate that ranked at the bottom of the NHL during that stretch.
Fans can expect to see a new weapon, recently recalled defenseman Brandt Clarke, probably getting some power-play time once the former lottery pick makes his season debut. McLellan also said it was unlikely the Kings would dress seven defensemen to accommodate Clarke, meaning it was quite possible that one of the Kings’ regulars on the blue line would sit when Clarke dressed.
“Clarkie will play on this trip, we didn’t bring him up to watch,” McLellan said.
One player who won’t compete imminently is goalie Pheonix Copley, who will miss the rest of the season after undergoing successful reconstructive surgery on his knee at USC’s Keck Hospital. The Kings signed former San Jose Sharks goalie Aaron Dell to a professional tryout, as confirmed by their minor-league affiliate, the Ontario Reign. With David Rittich now in the backup role behind Cam Talbot, Dell could be a replacement for Rittich as the Kings’ No. 3 goalie and a tutor of sorts for Reign prospect Erik Portillo. Dell, 34, was auditioned by the Carolina Hurricanes last month and released from his PTO.
Rittich, Dell and all the other NHL netminders have long seen Copley’s former teammate and the Capitals’ captain, Alex Ovechkin, in their nightmares, though his reign of terror has been abated this year.
He leads the Caps in points, but as he has tried to break the tape on the marathon that has been catching Wayne Gretzky’s career record for goals (Ovechkin has 830, Gretzky’s benchmark is 894), his pace has tapered off considerably. He’s on track for just 18 goals, a career low – that even despite having played through two seasons shortened by the pandemic and another that lost nearly half its games to a league-wide labor dispute – after averaging 61 goals per 82 games in his career prior to this campaign.
Though the Kings remained the team with the best goals-against average in the NHL, Washington was among the dozen clubs allowing fewer than three scores per contest. Unlike the Kings, who also rank in the top 10 in goals per game, the Capitals have come up with the second-fewest goals in the NHL this season, though they only needed two to top the Kings back on Nov. 29 in a 2-1 slog at Crypto.com Arena.
Kings at Washington
When: Noon PT Sunday
Where: Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.
How to watch: Bally Sports West, NHL Network