MEDIA: Anze Kopitar, Quinton Byfield, and Jim Hiller | LA Kings Training Camp

MEDIA: Anze Kopitar, Quinton Byfield, and Jim Hiller | LA Kings Training Camp

The last two years in camp have kind of felt a little shorter than Quebec City. There is Australia. This year, you’re just kind of here. Has it just felt like a a long camp and you’re ready to get things going? Yeah, definitely. When you’re coming down the stretch here with with camp, I think everybody’s, you know, eager to get going. Obviously, there’s still a couple more games that uh, you know, are definitely going to come in handy to uh, you know, get up to speed and, you know, I guess get all the kinks out of out of our game. but out of um yeah and just you know individually get yourself ready mentally more more than anything. So um it would be nice to play two games but then again it will be nice to to get going again. These may be the most important exhibition games where for the first time you’re going to have probably all four lines, all three pairs where they’re going to play in the actual game. Yeah, I think that was the plan all along to have, you know, full squad going for the last two games. So uh it’ll be good. Obviously, it’ll be good to to be in the same room with everybody and uh you know, I guess I just really get mentally prepared for uh for Tuesday. How annoying is it that next year is the first year that they’re only playing four preseason games? I don’t care. I do not care. How nice is it to kind of have a full preseason with Koozie? Like he kind of comes in last year and gels with you guys, but to have these games and these practices to just get to know each other a little bit more. Yeah, I mean we’ve played what close to 30 games last year, too. So, uh uh it’s a good chunk of games to um you don’t really necessarily have to have to get the chemistry going. You just got to kind of remind everything and you know, refresh refresh your course, I guess, if uh if you want to call it that way. And uh yeah, we just want to make sure that we have two strong games and then uh be ready to go on Tuesday. Looks like the you talked about Kempe, Kuzco, and yourself at five on five line, but also the special teams look like they’re coming back. Is the chemistry there as well? Yeah, I mean, for sure. Uh, you know, the the unit is the exact same that, uh, we finished off last year and I guess in the playoffs, our percentage was pretty good, but uh, you know, that was last year, this is this year, so we got to, you know, work on it a little bit more. Um, yeah, just really fine timing with it and we’ll use these next two games for that. Some discussion from Hiller about you and Kempe maybe killing penalties a little bit less. Is that something that you’ve talked to him about or how do you feel about that? I feel okay with that. I mean, if there’s ice time that you give up, it’s it’s definitely penalty killing, you know. Um, you know, there’s something that uh if you’re not killing penalties, then you’re most likely the line next up right after the penalty kill. So, um, you know, maybe gets more five on five out of it, which, uh, I’m not opposed to. The, uh, Amazon faceoff show you took part in last year comes out on Friday. Just as you look back, how did that opportunity kind of come about and what was the experience like as you did it? It was pretty good. Obviously, I think uh, you know, the the the crew did a good job. um they were very respectful of the privacy if something was you know maybe a little bit uh whatever too too personal and that they would check and ask and everything. So we had a good experience. The kids had fun being in front of the kids have fun being in front of the cameras for for a little bit but uh don’t think I want to do it like every day like uh some people do but uh it was a fun experience. How conscious were you of the cameras? Did it feel like they were there the whole time or did it sometimes feel like they’re here but you don’t really notice them as um you get used to it. I mean at first you definitely know they’re there and then as the time passes I guess. Uh it’s uh like it’s more of a normal really. Yeah. You don’t notice them that much and you you just kind of do your own thing. Forget you’re wearing microphone too. Um, but yeah, I mean it’s like I said, the crew did a great job. So they they make you feel comfortable doing that first and foremost and that’s that’s a pretty big deal when when you’re I guess filming somebody pretty much 24/7. You had a small role on Drive to Survive as well. Was anything different or similar about the the two experiences? Oh, that was a little bit more scripted than uh you know than the Amazon, but uh yeah, I guess it was a good warm-up. Pretty extensive IMDb going now. You got two two shows under your name. What’s what’s next? Who knows? Who knows? The last couple years there was Australia, Quebec City. It kind of made camp feel like I don’t know if shorter, but definitely less time here. This camp just felt really really long and you kind of ready to get into it next week. Yeah, I mean it’s been a good camp. I think I think it’s nice to be at home for the most part and um you know we’ve had some games on the road a little little trips but nothing compared to as you said the Australia and Quebec like those were kind of crammed in there you know you’re always on the road weren’t home much to start the season so um it’s a different feel and uh it feels good to be at home sleeping your own bed good cooking you know staying with the guys around town here so um feels a lot different it feels nice you look at these next couple games seems like the plan is to play the full lineup as you guys would slot in the regular season how important is that to kind of get up to speed with everybody like playing the role that you’re going to play in the real games. Yeah, I I think it’s good just, you know, kind of get a feel for it before, um, you know, the real thing starts and, um, you know, a lot of guys kind playing, you know, multiple different games. Um, you know, we haven’t played with some lines in the lineup. So, uh, just getting those guys back in the locker room, um, you know, back on the ice together, it’s it’s nice. And, um, you know, having, you know, hopefully two games here all together, um, before we get into it will be good. Can you tell if chemistry is back from training camp or do you have to get into game action to really know? Um, I mean, we’ve been kind of everybody’s with been with the same guys throughout the whole training camp and um, even when we came back in the summer, everybody’s kind of with each other. So, I think everybody has a pretty good feel um, for each other and excited to get back going and um, all the practice been, you know, we’ve had some long practice here, good a lot of up and down the ice and uh, we’ve been getting a good feel. As much as you can, I know it’s been discussed that if there’s anything with the three guys, it’s like shooting more, like getting choosing who shoots. How does that go like in a game? Do you just sit down on the bench, say, “Okay, I was here.” That type of stuff. Yeah, I mean I feel like just my line like we always look for the extra pass for sure. Um I feel like towards the end of the year we’re more more so mindset of just shooting. Um you know, you shoot the puck, you might not score, but you get it back and you kind of break teams down that way too. So we got to look at no no shots, you know, bad shots. So um more of a mindset of that and more shoot first. We we all know we want pass to each other. So, uh we just got to be a little more selfish at times. Over the back half of the last season, there were nights where your line was the top line minutes wise, points-wise. This season, obviously, on Jopar’s last, has there been any internal formal discussion about you guys stepping up? Sorry for the phrase, and taking more minutes and more offensive. Um I wouldn’t say there’s any any talk about that, but um you know, I feel like everybody in here is, you know, obviously trying to do the best for the team and always step up. So, I think we got, you know, four solid lines that can, you know, be the line on any given night. So, I think it’s going to be a competitive battle through all of us and, um, you know, each night’s going to be a different line. So, uh, I think as a team that’s our strong suit through depth and we’re all excited for that. You structurally, do you see anything different in the approach, the way you guys have come to camp this year from the way you closed out last year? Yeah, I think we we’re going to get back to, you know, how we kind of started the season last year. Um, a little more aggressive and, um, you know, attacking teams more. We we want the puck not sit back. So I think that’s going to be more of the style off the start and um obviously make changes during the season, but um that’s how we’re going to start. Q the Amazon Faceoff show that you took part in last year comes out on Friday. Uh how did that opportunity kind of come about for you and what was the experience like of having that level of like access into your life? Yeah. Um it was cool. It was it’s a lot of fun honestly. You kind of just following you try to you know when the camera’s around you try to you know kind of be yourself but it’s also hard to. So, um, as a fan, um, if I had that growing up, you know, I’d be all over that and I’m obviously watching it. So, I kind of try to look at it in that way, just being able to, you know, kind of show the side of, you know, my life, you know, being a pro alete and, uh, what we kind of do on a daily basis. So, I think it’s a good insight and it was really cool, um, you know, getting to do with, you know, Kopi and all the guys here. So, um, I’m excited for that and, you know, I got a sneak peek and it looked really good. How cool was it that Kopi was also involved? like you’ve obviously talked so much about how much you’ve learned from him on and off the ice to be able to do something like that with him. Imagine made it a little bit more special. Yeah. No, for sure. And I think again as a fan perspective like I feel there hasn’t been that much um insight on you know Kopi um you know kind of sharing you know that much of his life. So um just being able to see you know that you know he’s had amazing career and you know what he’s done. So you can kind of see what he does um you know how good he is as a leader um you know as a family guy as well. So just being able to see, you know, that side of him is really cool as well. Um, but just being able to do it with him was is special, too. As one of the younger kind of up and cominging stars in the league, can you kind of appreciate how important stuff like this is for the fans who really do, I think, enjoy seeing this like behind the scenes type of content? Yeah, for sure. I think when I was there, we had the forget what it was, but it was one of the Leafs um and they kind of show a little bit of that stuff. So, uh, for me to do it now, be able to show kind of, you know, our side and, you know, my side of it, it’s it’s really cool and, uh, I think it’s a good opportunity to grow the game as well. Um, just being able to people get see inside and, um, you know, start to follow along those players and everything. So, I think it was really good experience all around and, uh, for the fans as well. Kobe’s got Amazon Face Off. He’s got Drive to Survive as his next career. Maybe just a reality TV guy. He might be he’d be good for a couple mission today. Anything on him? Yeah. Um, Edmonson’s just maintenance and Burrows were still trying to get some follow-up testing from from last night. Yeah. Last night, he blocked a shot. Yeah. Lower upper. Uh, would be upper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Blocked a shot and just being cautious, I guess. We’ll see. Don’t know 100% yet. This morning the camp roster was cut down to 23. Will Burough’s status potentially affect that number? Uh, that’s a good question. I It’s a good question. I I I can’t answer it right yet because I I don’t know. I don’t know. We haven’t We haven’t talked about that. Yeah, we thought that he would be okay or assumed he would probably be okay. So, we just didn’t get into it that deeply. So, I’m assuming he’s going to be all right and then we won’t have to address that. Yeah. With five, six days left technically in camp, but your roster down to the 23 limit, is is what we saw out there this morning what you’re anticipating starting the season with, or is there still an opportunity for guys to make an argument for themselves? Yeah. No, I I would say that was it. So, what happened was, you know, last year we went out to Quebec for that week, played those final two exhibition games. I think we took 25 26 guys. Most guys played both nights. uh we really liked how that flowed into the season and so you know like Kopi and those guys have only played one game so far so we’ve had a lot of players who’ve done a lot of practicing and not much uh playing. We’d like to feel like this is our kind of our roster set. We want to get two good games in you know prior to Tuesday which is going to be on us before we know it. Um so we’ve just got a better rhythm with just our team with the guys who are still here. anything you could share into maybe the thought process on 13 forwards AD versus 147 or just kind of how camp broke with how guys play? Yeah, I I would say that’s that’s mostly it. I mean, there’s there’s different philosophies on two forwards, 1D, 2D, one forward, you know, uh what that extra is going to look like. I don’t think anybody goes three and three extras at either position. Um but sometimes it’s, you know, based on who’s eligible for waiverss, who isn’t, where your depth is, any lingering injuries. Um, so I wouldn’t read too much into it. This is just kind of where it’s landed for now. One guy who is still here is Jacob. Talked to him last night. He’s never made an opening night roster and it seemed to really mean something to him. Just how is he maybe taken a step from being not in that picture to where now he he has to be in that picture? Yeah. Uh, I didn’t know that. So that’s that’s good because I can talk to him about that. That’s uh those are the stories that are great I think for all of us coaches media. You hang around, you hang around, you hang around. I heard Ken on the plane. He talked to some of the players last night. He was talking about Nick Jensen for the Red Wings. You know, Ken said, “I’ve had this meeting with Nick Jensen many times and then 27 years old, Nick Jensen gets called up and he’s had a great career um since then, you So you love those players who just persevere, take the news, go down, keep playing and so for him it’s a similar path and I think last year he really established himself as an NHL defenseman. So I don’t think there’s any question there. Um it’s just whether he’s in our top six or not but but good on him. If you’ve got the roster set and you want to have some experience with it heading into the season, does that mean that the special teams units are also basically in place? I I would say for the most part there, you know, we finished this the year pretty well on the power play. That unit is set. We’re still kind of working out. We we believe we’ve got the second unit kind of in place, but there could be some subtle changes there yet. Um, you know, Fog and Morsy both did a pretty good job on the power play. They’re competent power players. They’re currently not on the power play, so you know, we we could we could slide them in pretty easily. Sometimes it has to do with your hand and who enters the puck and who takes the face offs and who’s the shooter. There’s all these kind of subtleties that go to the power play that that you know might give a guy a leg up over another guy. It looked like you had Dowy and Clark out on the second unit. Going from four forwards and one defenseman to five forwards and then switching back to two defens. Would there be any different scenario that you might use the two defenseman unit in specific situations or will that just depend on flow of the game and how many minutes? Yeah. Well, well, there’s two things. They probably don’t want to hear this, but um you’re probably more comfortable having the two defenseman be the second part of the unit because the other team’s coming out of the box and you’re you got two defenseman out there. It’s tough to have five forwards when the other team’s coming out of the box at the end of the penalty. Now, it will happen. it can happen. So that would be one thing I would say would be a knock against them. But if they get hot and the other unit isn’t scoring, they’ll they’ll start. They’ll start. So that’s that would be their challenge. Yeah. Just a couple of practices left before you get started. Are you pretty pleased with what you’ve been able to accomplish and get covered so far as? Yeah, I would say for sure right up until yesterday. I thought we had a really good practice yesterday. So, Monday, Tuesday, today was probably I one of my least the favorable practices, I think I think it’s just time for us to start playing or for those group of players who’ve only played one game, I think it’s time to start playing. That’s that’s kind of the sense I got. They just kind of like, okay, let’s get playing. It’s we we’re over this practicing all the time. So I think it comes at the right time for us to have these two games in two days and again season will be on us before we lo a lot of last night see exactly how much it turned out to be probably a good thing. Were you happy with the way he handled that much ice? Yeah and Mo too. I think Mo was probably you know right there with him uh when we lost Burr and and they put a lot of pressure on us the last two periods. So that’s you know you want reps, you want ice time. They got a lot of them unfortunately with a lot of Dzone which is the hardest minutes. Um but yeah, I mean that’s that’s the part of exhibition games is you know Mo was probably 25 minutes. I’m just guessing. I don’t know the last time he’s played 25 and definitely not in the NHL. The group that’s still here, a lot of them have had more than the one rep, but sometimes it’s been in a different role than they’ll probably play in their season. How important is it to get these last two games where the guys are slotted exactly where they’ve got to be slotted for opening night? Yeah, that that’s just it. But I think the rhythm the rhythm is important and I think this year different than last the rhythm is going to be different than last year because we have more depth both on forward and defense in my mind. So the guys who got used to the rhythm and they went from 14 12 to 16 and a half, they’ll tell you they loved that rhythm. Now they might be back to 14 and a half. So, that’s going to be an adjustment for for some players. And uh you know, they just have to get back into that mode. And and you know, when you’re playing lots, you you’re you’re every player will tell you, I’m in it. I’m I’m I feel good. I can’t wait to get out there. I’m in the rhythm. And when I don’t play as much, I get out of the rhythm and it’s hard for me. Can I play more? That’s a lot of the conversation. And you just can’t. When you have a lot of depth, you can’t. So now you just got to be able to get your mind focused and disciplined to wait your turn and make sure you’re ready when your turn is called. There was a lot of conversation earlier in camp about the handful of guys fighting for the open forward spots. It looks like Jeff Malot emerges as the winner. He had a whatever 12 or 13 game stretch at the end of last season, but he’s also played incredibly well in the preseason. What What did he do right to secure that spot? Well, uh, you know, a couple things. We talked in the summer, early in the summer, and he’s a big, strong guy, super fit, and I thought he could use more muscle, and he’s very lean, like, uh, so he, you know, I kind of gave him what I thought in my mind, uh, a kind of a target weight that might benefit him more. So the first thing he does, he shows up exactly on where I said I hoped his weight would be like on the number, you know, so he took that to heart. We asked him to play maybe with a little bit more robustness, consistency, a little more of an edge. I think the muscle, the size that he’s put on hasn’t slowed down his skating and maybe allowed him maybe it’s given him more confidence. He’s maybe has more impact on on his uh physicality, wins more puck battles because of it. So, he’s done exactly what what we’ve asked him to do. And then on top of it, anybody watching can go, man, this Moths look pretty good. He scores every night. He’s getting an assist every night. He’s all over the score sheet offensively. So, he did what we asked him to do without the puck physically. Now, he’s adding some getting on the score sheet. It’s pretty hard to keep a guy like that off the team. You’d say anybody could have picked that one under the hat. this guy has showed up and really taken a step. I think he he’s the one guy and it was a it was it was a tight fight for all those guys. He’s clearly made it pretty easy for everybody. And often times that’s what happens. One guy just is able to separate himself. You hope it’s not like this because maybe one make a wrong decision and two somebody hasn’t taken that opportunity. Well, he he clearly took it and ran with it. One guy who was kind of in that mix but a different situation was Liam Greenree and obviously the AHL’s maybe unfortunately not an option for him but what strides did you see from him from the player you had last year to this and maybe what parting message did you guys send with him of things you might want to see coming into next year? Well I think he’s he’s physically much stronger and I think a lot of times what comes with that is the second time around a little bit more confident. You know the surroundings you know what NHL players playing against them and with them feel like. first time it’s all pretty new. Um, so I think he was a lot more comfortable just generally. So I think he was able to maybe absorb a little bit more of the information rather than just kind of happy to be here and having all these firsts. Uh, we saw his offensive ability. I mean, he he probably could have had two or three goals that typically he would score because he’s a shooter. Uh, we saw him make some really nice passes, really nice plays with the puck. So all those things are in place. It’s just a matter of, you know, continuing the maturation process and understanding at the NHL level. If you make a mistake, the other guys are so good, just like you are in junior, somebody makes a mistake when you’re on the ice, bang, you can put it in the back of the net. Somebody makes a mistake in the NHL and bang, they’re coming at you. So, I think, you know, puck management is probably the one thing that we’ve we’ve left him with, just to make sure as an offensive player, he’s taking the risk when it’s there.

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