12/6 Preview – Need to start earlier + Lines “starting how they finished”, Danault talks scoring slump, Speculation addressed

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The Kings conclude a four-game homestand tonight against Chicago, as they look to bounce back from Thursday’s disappointing defeat to the Blackhawks.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Ten different Kings players have collected a point against the Blackhawks in their two previous matchups thus far this season. Forward Trevor Moore scored the goal on Thursday, his sixth over the last five seasons against the Blackhawks, which is one shy of center Phillip Danault’s seven in that same span. Danault has 15 points (7-8-15) from 14 games played versus Chicago as a member of the Kings.

KINGS VITALS: After a full day off yesterday, the Kings got back at it earlier today with an optional yet well attended morning skate at Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo.

Goaltender Darcy Kuemper was one of the only bright spots in Thursday’s 2-1 loss against Chicago, as he made 34 saves on 36 shots to keep the Kings in the game. Kuemper has strong career splits versus the Blackhawks, with a 9-4-2 record, a .918 save percentage and a 2.31 goals-against average.

Here’s how the Kings are expected to line up tonight against Chicago –

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

Anderson – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Dumoulin – Ceci

Kuemper
Forsberg

Jim Hiller said that the Kings will start tonight how they finished on Thursday, not how they started. So, that should point to the above as being the approach tonight……could have it slightly off, but that should be pretty close based on what I had down from the third period changed made last game.

BLACKHAWKS VITALS: Chicago moved into a wild-card spot in the Western Conference with Thursday’s win over Los Angeles, giving them wins in two of their last three games entering tonight’s rematch.

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

Blackhawks lines in practice today with no Teravainen:

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

Vlasic-Crevier
Kaiser-Levshunov
Grzelcyk-Murphy
Rinzel

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) December 5, 2025

Chicago forward Teuvo Teravainen took an Adrian Kempe shot to the face in Thursday’s win. He left the game after that, did not return and did not practice yesterday. He is considered questionable for tonight’s game. Forward Frank Nazar had assists on both Blackhawks goals on Thursday and ranks second on the team this season with 15 assists.

Storyline Of The Day – Stop Waiting, Start Starting
A quote from Warren Foegele after last game stood out to me.

I asked about the performance in the final 20 minutes, versus what we saw in the first 40 and how the team can get that type of showing for 60 minutes. Foegele offered the perspective of someone who watched the last three games from the press box with an injury and I thought what he said was spot on.

“One thing I noticed from watching games is it feels like when we’re down goals, we’re really more on our toes,” he said. “I felt like last year, that was a lot of our success, was being on our toes. I don’t know if we’re trying to sit back or anything like that but it feels like when we’re trailing we keep things much simpler and we’re trying to score a goal. So, maybe if we have that mindset to start the game, it might be a lot easier for us.”

Earlier in his interview, he spoke about 40 minutes of hockey that wasn’t good enough, followed by a push in the final 20.

“It’s hard to win games like that.”

Indeed it is.

He’s not the only one thinking it, either.

Forward Phillip Danault said the same thing, believing that the Kings are almost waiting to go down a goal before they play with that aggressive mindset. The fact that they are recognizing it and talking about it means it’s not intentional. But it’s certainly happening and that’s an area that has to change.

“We can’t wait to be behind to be aggressive and that’s what we’re doing right now,” Danault said. “We wait too much, we play the d-zone game, wait for them to make mistakes but then we don’t score goals. In the third, we were more aggressive and that’s more fun.”

Overall, the Kings have scored 15 goals in the first period this season.

That’s 31st in the NHL. They are also tied for the third-best mark in terms of goals allowed, so it’s not like they’re getting shelled by any means, but 15 goals in 27 first periods offensively tells a lot of the story. Right around every other game has a zero by the LAK column on the scorebug. The final 20 on Thursday was the team’s best 20 but you can’t wait until you’re down 2-0 to start playing on your toes. Plus, this isn’t a one-game problem. See 15 goals in 27 first periods. We’ve continually seen it, almost all season.

I get that the game script always favors a trailing team that is pushing. But once the Kings start playing their game, forechecking, playing with aggression, forcing the other team to make mistakes, you can see it’s in there. They created plenty of chances in the third period. But to see that for 20 minutes last night is not good enough. To see it as infrequently as we have within games is not good enough. Answers are needed.

“We’ve got to play a little quicker,” Jim Hiller added. “I think the times we had it in the second period too – we talked about a chunk of the second period – and the third, we played a little quicker and that’s when we were dangerous. We went over it, talked about that, showed some video on that, saw where it worked for us and where it didn’t. I hope we get that right from the start tonight.”

Of the players who addressed it, Danault had perhaps his best game of the season on Thursday – more on him below – and Foegele created the only goal the Kings scored through pure hustle.

He was the one who gave 110 percent on that play to beat out an icing, which led to the only goal the Kings scored in the game. The Kings need more plays like that right now. More of those all-out effort types of plays. More races and battles won. More plays that are 50/50, or close to it, that the Kings win. And they need it from the opening puck drop, continuing on through the game. Foegele’s effort there was a play of desperation, but it’s a problem that we can zone in on one icing beat out and really hype up that play. Should be one of many.

This is a team that has to look quicker, urgent and desperate for 60 minutes tonight. They’ve historically responded when facing a game like that. They’ll get a chance, against the same opponent, to do exactly that tonight.

3 To Watch For –
– Over the last couple of morning skates, I’ve seen Phillip Danault on the ice earlier than just about everyone and on later than just about everyone. Watched him work on certain offensive situations, getting shots in from specific areas, with certain passes coming his way. Today, he was doing some 1-on-1 work with Newell Brown that was clearly focused on situational plays in games, centered around shooting and scoring.

Asked him about what he’s trying to work on or maybe trying to feel good with. His answer offered what I felt was a lot of candor about his current slump.

“Honestly, I’ve tried every tool I had from my 11 years in the NHL, that’s worked in the past and haven’t worked this year. I’ve tried everything, whether it’s mental, on the ice first, preparation, work on 200 shots at practice, it doesn’t matter what I do right now, it seems like I have to go through this. That’s the way it is right now. The best thing I can do is keep working, keep my head up and doing the right thing, whether it’s practice or games, and do the best I can for my team, like I’ve been doing my 11 years.”

Look, Danault has 0 goals in 27 games. He’s owned that and the Kings need that two-way game from Danault, not just the defensive side.

Clearly he’s trying to change things, trying to work on things, trying to get going. I thought last game was one of his best of the season, especially in terms of getting offensive chances. Didn’t finish, didn’t get the bounces, but he was in positions to get those chances, which is usually the first sign of breaking through.

“It’s one of those things, start of the year, it’s really hard,” Danault added. “You want to score goals. I’m trying to do my job, detail-by-detail, like I do every game in my whole career. Nothing’s changed. I can’t say that I didn’t try last game, that my mind wasn’t there, it was there. For some reason, we don’t score a lot of goals, in general. It’s stuck with me as well. I’ve got to find a way.”

It’s not just Danault. The Kings have several forwards underperforming offensively. But he’s trying. He’s working on it. If he continues to get the collection of chances like he got on Thursday, the dam will break.

– Regarding the power play, Jim Hiller continues to refer to it as probably the biggest negative for the group right now.

“The power play is really struggling,” he said. “One power-play goal over a couple games, if you think back six or seven games, now, adding three or four power-play goals, what that would have done to the results. These are all one-goal games. We don’t need to score 10 more, but we do need to score on the power play……that’s the biggest part of the game, when you talk about scoring, that’s letting us down.”

He said that personnel is likely to remain what it was on Thursday, which would see Drew Doughty at the top, Andrei Kuzmenko on the left and Anze Kopitar at the netfront, with Kevin Fiala and Adrian Kempe rotating between the right-hand circle and bumper spot. The Kings had different personnel, I believe, in four straight games coming into Thursday. Have to try something for more than 60 minutes. Hiller seemed to imply that there could be systematic changes, or different things tried, but didn’t go into specifics beyond confirming similar personnel.

– Lastly, just closing the book on yesterday’s discussion with Pierre LeBrun’s statement from yesterday afternoon.

Reached out to Ken Holland regarding today’s speculation of a potential coaching change in L.A. and the Kings GM says “there’s zero truth” to that.

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) December 5, 2025

LeBrun had it directly from the source in Ken Holland regarding speculation on social media. Hiller said this morning that he was made aware of the reports but did not meet with Holland about them, saying that he did not feel it was necessary to do so.

That’s that.

Kings and Blackhawks, a 6 PM puck drop with eyes on getting ship moving back in the right direction.