12/4 Preview – Doughty, Foegele, Danault In + 8 On Return, Foegele’s Impact, “Swagger” Needed, Two-Game Series

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The Kings begin a two-game mini-series against the Chicago Blackhawks tonight at Crypto.com Arena, as the two teams conclude their season series over the next three days.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Alex Laferriere scored when these teams met back in October, a 3-1 Kings win, which gives him five goals from seven games played against Chicago over the last three seasons, tied for the second most in the NHL in that span. Forward Adrian Kempe had an assist in that game, which gives him eight helpers versus the Blackhawks over the past three seasons, tied for the third most leaguewide.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held a (mostly) full-team practice yesterday and went with an optional, yet well-attended skate this morning.

Goaltender Darcy Kuemper did not skate this morning, which puts him in line tonight to make his second consecutive start between the pipes. Kuemper did not play during the 3-1 win in Chicago earlier this season but brings with him a 9-3-2 record against the Blackhawks throughout his career, with a .915 save percentage and a 2.32 goals-against average.

In terms of tonight’s lineup, I’m not exactly sure what to expect, but here’s a projection based on yesterday’s practice and injury updates provided –

Moore – Kopitar – Kempe
Fiala – Byfield – Armia
Laferriere – Danault – Kuzmenko
Foegele – Turcotte – Perry

Anderson – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Dumoulin – Ceci

Kuemper
Forsberg

Look for both Drew Doughty and Warren Foegele to return tonight for the Kings. Doughty has missed seven games with a lower-body injury, while Foegele has missed the last three with an upper-body injury. Additionally, forward Phillip Danault will play after he missed yesterday’s practice with a maintenance day. Again, what’s listed above is an educated guess, so wait for warmups to see for sure. Those are the 18 skaters I expect to play, just not sure on the configuration of the bottom six and the defensive pairings.

BLACKHAWKS VITALS: Chicago has dropped six of their last seven games, most recently an entertaining 4-3 shootout defeat in Vegas on Tuesday evening.

Per Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun Times, here’s how the Blackhawks lined up this morning at Crypto.com Arena –

Blackhawks lines in morning skate in LA are the same as Tuesday:

Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky
Moore-Nazar-Bertuzzi
Teravainen-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Dach-Donato-Slaggert

Vlasic-Crevier
Kaiser-Levshunov
Grzelcyk-Murphy
Rinzel

Knight

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) December 4, 2025

Chicago forward Connor Bedard ranks in the NHL’s Top-10 in goals, assists and points this season and although he’s not found a ton of offensive success thus far against the Kings in his career, with three points (2-1-3) from seven games played, he did find the back of the net in October at United Center. Overall this season, Bedard ranks third in the NHL in scoring with 38 points, trailing only Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and San Jose’s Macklin Celebrini.

Storyline Of The Day – Drew-in Up A Return
Drew Doughty confirmed this morning that he will play tonight after missing seven games with a lower-body injury.

“I feel good, I’m ready to go,” Doughty said. “I didn’t lose my cardio and we had lots of individual work to get that back to where it was before. I feel good.”

Taking it back a couple of weeks, in the moment, here’s how Doughty saw things transpire.

He blocked the shot, as we saw, and stuck with it to finish the play, preventing what was almost certainly a goal in the process with an excellent defensive stand. When he got to the bench, he initially thought it was just a typical blocked shot, which hurts a lot in the moment but then goes away. This time, the pain didn’t go away and he knew something was up. Ultimately, the scan he got showed that surgery wasn’t needed and now, just shy of three weeks after he initially blocked the show in Ottawa, he returns to game action against Chicago.

“Usually when you block a shot, you go back to the bench in a lot of pain and then, slowly, it kind of goes away, but this one wasn’t going away, so obviously knew something normal wasn’t up,” Doughty said. “Went in and found out bad news, but we basically knew right after the game, we were pretty sure it wasn’t going to require surgery. Then, when we got back to LA, I was able to get a CT scan to confirm that, so we knew it wasn’t gonna be too, too long pretty quickly.”

The Kings could certainly use Doughty, that’s for sure.

In the seven games he’s missed, they won just twice, posting a 2-2-3 record. The Kings maintained a strong level of defensive play, but averaged just two goals per game in those seven matchups.

Doughty has more offensive ability in the offensive zone than most when it comes to the backend for the Kings, but he’s really a two-way defenseman. Still, he’s got one of the heavier shots on the backend for the Kings and a willingness to shoot it. Having a personality and a leader like Doughty back in the lineup should carry natural benefits, beyond just what he can do with the puck. All things that Jim Hiller and the team are looking forward to getting back into the lineup.

“I look at it as big picture with Drew, I just think his energy, his swagger when he walks in the room, I think it’s just a general confidence that can help all areas of the game for us,” Hiller said of having Doughty back. “That’s the big picture view from Drew and then playing, his play speaks for itself. He’s not a pure offensive defenseman, he plays both ways, but what he does, along with [Joel Edmundson], is they have a heavy, heavy slap shot from the point. So when you’re talking about trying to get pucks to the net, if it’s a slap shot, it’s a little harder for the other team to block……we’re looking for his slapshot when he gets the opportunity.”

The word “swagger” was one that Doughty used as well.

When asked what he feels has been missing in the overall game for the Kings, he used that same word, swagger, as well as “confidence”. He understands that the Kings need to be doing things differently to create more offense, but he also sees what he believes are a ton of players that are down in confidence, down in swagger. When the goals aren’t there, that happens, obviously. When the goals start coming, it improves. But Doughty also sees the group of defensemen as being an area that can help with clean breakouts to get the puck moving in the right direction, as well as activation in the offensive zone. It’s an area he can contribute in and seems focused on contributing in.

Expecting Doughty to play a good amount tonight, though I think in the long run, the Kings want to see his minutes in the low 20’s to keep him fresh. Brandt Clarke has shown he can take on more this season on the right side and I don’t think the Kings want to just slash his minutes because Doughty is back. Hopefully both can eat. Expecting it to be Doughty on PP1, though, with Clarke likely on PP2 and then it remains to be seen on the defensive pairings. As noted in yesterday’s practice report, there was lots of mixing and matching with the pairings. So, we’ll see what we get tonight.

What we know, though, is that number 8 will be in action for the hosts and that is a good thing for a group in need of a bit of a spark.

3 To Watch For –
– Tonight’s game also will be a return to action for forward Warren Foegele. Unsurprising after speaking with him yesterday, when he said he felt ready to go, but we got the formal confirmation tonight.

In hearing from Hiller this morning, he felt that Foegele played his best game of the season last time out, which was November 24 versus Ottawa.

“He’s coming off what I believe was his best game of the year, the Ottawa game, so the injury was really disappointing, because he felt like that was his best game,” Hiller said of Foegele “Now, he’s going to start to build some momentum, so hopefully, even though he’s been off, he can build upon that last game. He’s had some time to reflect on his season too, I’m sure you guys have talked to him, I think we’re going to see more of that from him and I think it’ll start tonight.”

Foegele is an important piece for the Kings. He brings a ton of energy and Hiller called him the team’s best player at creating below the dots in the offensive zone. Foegele led the Kings in 5-on-5 scoring last season and getting him back going again is huge for the group. He felt very motivated yesterday and looking forward to seeing him get back at it tonight.

– The concept of a two-game series is an interesting one from a coaching perspective.

It’s not an advantage one way or the other, but it is interesting.

“I don’t mind it at all,” Hiller said of the consecutive games against one opponent. “I think – and it works this way for both teams – you can just get a little more dialed in. The players get a lot of information over a long season, playing all these different teams, and you’d like to think they’re grasping everything all the time, but we all know that’s probably not the case. You get the same team in a short period, I think they dig in a little bit more and they make their own adjustments within the game themselves.”

Like Hiller said, there’s no advantage one way or the other. Same goes for both teams. But it’s an interesting quirk in the schedule it feels like you see maybe once or twice per season. The Kings don’t have in on the road, but they will host Minnesota on January 3 and 5 in consecutive games. See how this one unfolds.

– Lastly, a reminder that tonight’s game is a national broadcast on ESPN+ / Hulu. Cassie Campbell-Pascall will be the analyst, after joining our LA Kings Insider show last week. Funny how that works. Check out her take on the team below.

Kings and Blackhawks, a 7 PM faceoff in the first of two games between the two clubs in Los Angeles this week!