There are general questions with the Los Angeles Kings as they hop on the ice Thursday for their first training camp workout.
Can they map out a different ending? Will any of their offseason moves make a difference? Are they connected to the hollow middle? Will someone in power pay for another first-round exit — or worse?
But the answers to those will be provided over the next seven months. The Kings will have 68 players to start camp, and they will eventually whittle that down to the maximum 23 before their season opener on Oct. 10 at Buffalo.
Live viewings at Crypto.com Arena will not be possible as renovations continue throughout the preseason. There are games against the Ducks in Anaheim and in Ontario at the home of their AHL club before they head to Quebec City for two contests. When they host San Jose in their home opener on Oct. 24, seven games will be removed from their schedule.
In the meantime, the Kings will be dealing with questions facing the club over the next three weeks. Here are five of the most pressing as they go through camp.
Will Quinton Byfield succeed at playing center?
Fresh off a long-awaited breakout season, with 20 goals and 55 points, and now armed with a new five-year contract that makes him a $6 million player, Byfield could be ready to take off with a new level of confidence. Part of that should involve a change from the left side back to his natural position of center.
Byfield played some at center last season but the talk all summer was more about a permanent move. The Kings need that after releasing Pierre-Luc Dubois’ eight-year contract with a trade, and while Dubois has underperformed a lot, there’s still a hole to fill up the middle. It is calculated that Kevin Fiala will start out on the wing of Byfield. Finding chemistry with the mercurial Fiala can sometimes be a challenge, but if that happens, Byfield could thrive.
If Byfield is able to drive a line and thrive in center, the Kings can go into the season with him, Anze Kopitar and Phillip Danault as a strong two-way trio on their depth chart. And if the 22-year-old Byfield takes his game to a higher level, the franchise can feel better about him eventually taking the reins from Kopitar as their No. 1 center.
Who can play with Kopitar and Adrian Kempe?
The Kings will have an opening on the left side next to Kopitar and Kempe on the top line if a Byfield move is made. There will be candidates, but none like a proven sniper who can strike fear into the opposition. Getting another scorer is something LA hasn’t accomplished in the offseason.
Warren Foegele is coming off a career-best season with Edmonton by signing a three-year contract with an average annual value of $3.5 million. It’s a modest uptick from what he did during his three seasons with the Oilers, so if the Kings can get another 20 goals out of him, amid his usual determined play, it will be good value. Foegele has moved up and down lineups in his NHL career, but he showed last season, spending a lot of time with Leon Draisaitl, that he can complement high-quality players.
But if the Kings see Foegele as a better fit with Byfield and Fiala, Alex Laferriere could be tapped. Laferriere, 22, was a surprise addition to the squad after a strong first camp with the club and he played 81 games. His straight-line game won the confidence of coaches, and he chipped in 12 goals and 11 assists as a rookie. Laferriere has a good shot but can be more accurate with it to produce more.
Is Brandt Clarke destined to remain on the roster?
Clarke got 16 games with the Kings last season but spent most of his time in the AHL, where he made the all-star team. But the 21-year-old also didn’t play another game with Los Angeles after March 7, as coach Jim Hiller had his six to use on defense and clearly didn’t trust the youngster’s defensive play in a playoff push.
But with former second-stringer Matt Roy now in Washington, Clarke has his chance to be a permanent member of the blue line. The Kings will have to decide if he’s ready to step into the top-four role or start him with a less taxing third-pairing and push Jordan Spence, who they re-signed to a two-year deal.
Clarke has clear offensive gifts. Sometimes, the Kings put him on the ice with Drew Doughty if they were behind and needed a goal. They shouldn’t be expected to pull Doughty from the first unit on the power play, but inserting Clarke into Spence’s spot at quarterback on the second unit could be an option. It will be something to watch out for in the pre-season.
The Kings made official Wednesday their one-year re-signing of Kaliyev for $825,000. That doesn’t mean the winger’s place at the club is firmly settled. Kaliev will be in camp under contract, but only after being reluctant to accept the club’s qualifying offer, and not necessarily with a fixed place in its plans.
The two are in an uneasy place. Kaliyev entered 2023-24 with high hopes but suspension kept him out of the first two games. The 23-year-old had seven points in his first nine contests, but his ice time began to fluctuate. He still had 12 points in 20 games but could not stay higher in the lineup, despite Viktor Arvidsson being sidelined through the first half of the season. Frustrated by fourth-line deployments or health scratches, Kaliyev reportedly asked for a trade.
Exacerbating the split is the fact that Hiller played him less than Todd McLellan, whose trust he had already lost. Any trade value for a goal scorer with holes in his game has dropped. Hiller returns after having the interim tag removed, so there is no new coach to have a fresh start with. But unless a trade can be worked out immediately, it makes sense to play him – even as a showcase for others.
Is the 1-3-1 system a thing of the past?
The preseason games will be worth watching, if only to see how the Kings play. Their system last season focused less on creating chances through aggressive forechecking and more on clogging the neutral zone to create turnovers and force opponents off the puck. But even after they snapped out of their midseason funk and won games, the Kings drew criticism for their defensive tactics. Nikita Zadorov famously said that they “don’t play hockey”.
After losing to the Oilers in the first round again, the Kings – especially Fiala and Kempe – wondered aloud if the 1-3-1 trap was the most useful means of playing to their potential. Now at the controls for his first full season as coach, Hiller suggested they would evaluate their system play and sounded as if they could be open to change.
The Kings have long prided themselves on their defensive play. Their goaltenders benefited from that approach. But the scoring they got from their lineup in their successful early months dried up as the season wore on, and they finished 16th in offense even with career-high efforts from Byfield and Trevor Moore. Hiller could be different than McLellan, and now he can put more of his stamp on the team and not be an extension of LA’s former bench boss.
(Photo by Anze Kopitar: Harry How/Getty Images)
