The Kings sought to bring their home-ice energy to Big D as they traveled to take on the Dallas Stars in Friday’s finale of the season series before they’ll dash on to St. Louis for Saturday’s showdown with the Blues.
Even on a night where they were disjointed, the Kings plied a point from the Vancouver Canucks at home on Wednesday. As for Dallas (37-19-2; 8-2-1 in its last 11), the team that had walloped the Kings in four straight meetings entering the year, it has lost both clashes with the Kings this season, 3-2 on Dec. 4 and 5-4 in Feb. 7’s barn-burner.
As was the case in February, Dallas will be without No. 1 defenseman Miro Heiskanen, veteran forward Tyler Seguin and rearguard Nils Lundqvist. The Kings’ top blue-liner Drew Doughty, who missed the first 47 games of the season with a broken ankle, is currently sidelined (day-to-day) by a different lower-body injury.
Kings coach Jim Hiller went to David Rittich in net Wednesday for his first nod since Feb. 8. Rittich played both games against Dallas – preferred starter Darcy Kuemper was injured once and on personal leave after the birth of his second child the other time – but seemed at least equally likely to get the call in St. Louis after a performance Hiller described as “just OK.”
Hiller offered a similar assessment of his entire group when asked if he felt there had been a drop-off in the team’s play in the three games (2-0-1) since returning from the 4 Nations Face-Off break.
“I don’t disagree with that at all. I would’ve liked to have seen us really come out and play a full 60 [minutes] and go, and we didn’t, there’s no question,” Hiller said. “We’ve gotten, probably, pretty good results. Probably tonight, we could’ve gotten two [points] and probably the other nights, maybe we didn’t deserve two. Maybe we could’ve got one or zero, you know what I mean? The results, you hope that they balance themselves a little bit, so the sting is probably a little bit less because of what we probably deserved, the other games, I’m not so sure. So we’ve got to play better, I agree.”
One early-season constant for the Kings that has been less dependable of late has been the duo of Anže Kopitar and Adrian Kempe, particularly the typically unwavering, unflappable Kings captain. After starting the season with a team-leading 39 points in 36 games and a +16 rating, Kopitar’s 20 games since the calendar turned have produced a solitary goal, six assists and a -6 rating. During that span, he tied for seventh in points on the team with the third-fewest goals in the NHL.
As the combo of Kevin Fiala and Quinton Byfield, the Kings’ two leading scorers since Dec. 15, heated up with Alex Laferriere, the Kings’ line blending teamed them with Kempe, who has appeared reinvigorated. In chunks of two games with Fiala and Byfield, Kempe has a goal and two assists, after a month that saw him have his two longest scoreless stretches of the campaign (six games and three games, respectively).
“I’ve played with Kopi for so long and we’ve just had a little bit of a drought for a couple weeks here, so I think it’s good sometimes to change things up,” Kempe said. “You get a little excited sometimes to play with some different guys and I think it’s good for both of us.”
Hiller said concretizing the Fiala-Byfield-Kempe trio was something his staff would “consider for sure,” though the 11-7 alignment he utilized during the homestand gave him flexibility to do more in-game mixing anyway.
When the Kings visit St. Louis, it’ll be the teams’ first meeting of the campaign. The Blues entered Thursday’s throwdown with the Washington Capitals on a four-game points streak (3-0-1) but hovered around a .500 points percentage anyway.
Kings at Dallas
When: 5 p.m. Friday
Where: American Airlines Center, Dallas
TV: FDSNW, Victory+
Kings at St. Louis
When: 5 p.m. Saturday
Where: Enterprise Center, St. Louis
TV: KCAL (Ch. 9)