Practice Day, Insiders!

The Kings hit the ice for a mostly full-team skate today, in advance of a back-to-back this week versus St. Louis and Nashville.

Los Angeles had just about everyone on the ice, including a couple of players we didn’t see on Sunday.

Forward Adrian Kempe, who has been a regular non-attendee at this point in the season, was on the ice for his first practice in a couple of weeks. Kempe, as noted on Sunday, is progressing from his lower-body injury and said on Sunday that he is feeling better. Of late, the team’s priority has been games. He’s been healthy enough to go come puck drop but the Kings have managed his minutes on practice days, though with a gap here, he was able to practice today, which is really encouraging. Think it’s about keeping sharp and three days in between is a long time between games, especially at this point in the season. Kempe certainly did not seem limited today and was on the ice after, working on a couple of areas to his game.

Additionally, forward Samuel Helenius skated today, after he missed Sunday’s skate. Helenius is considered day-to-day right now and is a doubt for the games tomorrow and Thursday, for one reason or another. Interim Head Coach D.J. Smith already said that there will be lineup changes for the Kings, coming off Saturday’s showing against Utah, and with healthy forwards available, he won’t plan to push Helenius at less than 100 percent, when players like Alex Turcotte and Taylor Ward are available and ready to go. He also wants to get both of those players in based on merit, and Helenius could be out of the lineup tomorrow based on that.

Not with the full group today was forward Andrei Kuzmenko, though he continues to skate on his own. Kuzmenko has been on the ice for several days, non-contact capacity, but he has yet to progress to the full group. Kuzmenko is working his way back but feels more likely for a potential playoff series than a regular-season game with where he’s at and what we’ve heard from D.J. Smith and Ken Holland.

So, with all of that in mind, here’s what we saw from the Kings during today’s practice, which is how the Kings are expected to line up tomorrow evening against St. Louis –

Panarin – Kopitar – Kempe
Moore – Byfield – Laferriere
Armia – Laughton – Wright
Joseph – Turcotte – Ward
Malott – Helenius

Dumoulin – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Anderson – Ceci
Moverare

Kuemper / Forsberg

Couple of fairly substantial changes in that group, with Brian Dumoulin and Mikey Anderson swapping partners.

Dumoulin moved onto a pairing with Drew Doughty while Anderson moved with Cody Ceci. The Kings have not swapped the defensive pairings yet under Smith, when all six players have been healthy, but I think the timing here is good, if not overdue. The Utah games, both home and away, were tough nights for the Anderson/Doughty and Dumoulin/Ceci pairings, one apiece. With nine games left here, this is a move that saw some success in the past and could perhaps help again.

“We’ve got six games at home here and I think Mikey and Cec have played some good games together, they can defend as good as anyone and the Dumo and Dewey have played well together as well, so I think it’s a good time to shake it up and see what happens,” Interim Head Coach D.J. Smith said today. “As a whole, I think it helps our six guys and I think it makes guys more important. We’re going to win by committee. I think the way those pairs are set up makes guys a little more important.”

The Dumoulin/Doughty pairing has played together for 222 minutes this season and they’ve been on the ice for seven goals for, compared to five against, in 5-on-5 situations. The Anderson/Ceci pairing has been out there for nine goals for compared to seven against in just shy of 239 minutes. There are a lot of underlying numbers to dissect to really take a look at what is working versus what is perhaps not supported in a smaller sample size but for a team that has lost five of six games, allowing more than they are accustomed to, goals for and against is a starting point. In those areas, there is a track record. The Dumoulin/Ceci pairing, for example, has been on the ice for 18 goals for and 29 against this season. Anderson/Doughty is at 26 for and 31 against, though minus-10 (13F, 23A) since the calendar flipped to 2026. Time to try something different.

Now, based on that quote, it sounds like Anderson and Ceci will be given very defensive instructions, likely alongside defensive-zone starts, while Dumoulin will be encouraged to play more offensively to try and complement Doughty and get more from the blueline from two pairs offensively, as opposed to mostly just when Brandt Clarke is on the ice.

In speaking with Anderson today, who is a professional through and through, even in tougher times, he said that moving away from Doughty and shaking up the pairs perhaps gives he and the group a “spark” and a “reset” heading into the final nine-game stretch of the season. He added that throughout his time here, a lot of his assignments have been defensive, against top-tier opposition. He and Doughty have been one of the premier defensive pairs in the NHL over the last handful of seasons, but this isn’t really a time for track record. Time for a change and he acknowledged that.

“I’ve spent a lot of time since I’ve been here playing against other guys’ top lines, so maybe just trying to be more on the defensive side and I know Cec is like that too,” Anderson said today. “At the start of the year, we did that a little bit, where we play against the other team’s top guys, so maybe from that standpoint, we get to, I don’t want to say hone in defensively, but we get to take a little more pride in trying to shut down whoever St. Louis has on their top line, who is going, and then Nashville and down the stretch at home, you get your matchup. As a whole, we can be a little better defensively, night in and night out. It’s time to change.”

Personally, I think an Anderson/Clarke pairing would thrive, as I think their games would compliment each other nicely, and with Clarke’s growth this season defensively, I think they could take on a lot. I think Clarke has earned the opportunity for more and I believe that pair could also benefit Anderson. However, we are 73 games in and really have not seen that pairing, so I don’t see it happening now. Perhaps into next season, depending on how the defensive group is built. However, the moves today do have a positive track record to point to, so that is encouraging.

Looking specifically at Dumoulin, I think this is a time for him to really excel. I like this move for him I think in his time with the Kings, the larger the role he has played, the better we’ve seen from him.

Dumoulin has been pretty effective when playing with Doughty this season. Looking specifically at Dumoulin’s numbers, when playing off that pairing, he has been on the ice for 18 goals for and just 10 against in nearly 500 minutes, with Ceci’s numbers better as well. Dumoulin is a guy who has played top-four minutes on a lot of good teams and not only has he played on those teams, but he’s been a guy who has positively impacted the game just about everywhere he’s been. Perhaps it’s been a bit harder this season to adapt to playing a third-pairing role at times. Of late, I think he’s shown he should play more minutes for this Kings team specifically. I like the change for him, think there is more in there, with a larger opportunity.

So, that’s that.

It’s something. When you give up six goals on home ice, I think you’ve got to try something. The Kings will likely shuffle up their bottom two lines tomorrow. While that can impact things, the defensive changes are the ones that I think merit more discussion. Expecting the lineup listed above to be what we see tomorrow to start the game versus St. Louis and we’ll go from there.