Coming into the 2024 calendar year, the Los Angeles Kings are looking to build from the start of the 2023-24 season. They were 20-8-5 after 33 games before the calendar flipped to a new year. The Kings are currently sitting in third place in the Pacific Division with 45 points, four behind the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights, and six behind the Vancouver Canucks. Their first game of 2024 was against the Toronto Maple Leafs which ultimately ended in a 3-0 defeat on Tuesday, Jan. 2. The Kings have one more game at home in Crypto.com Arena before going on a six-game, 10-day road trip that sees them go out to the East Coast.
The Detroit Red Wings come to town for a 7:30 PM PT puck drop where the Kings look to get their first win of 2024. What are some storylines coming into the game versus the Red Wings for the Kings?
Brandt Clarke Gets Recall From Ontario Reign
It’s an early storyline to keep an eye on, not only for Kings fans but hockey fans in general, as defenseman Brandt Clarke got recalled to the NHL from the Ontario Reign of the American Hockey League (AHL) on Wednesday, Jan. 3. The 20-year-old Ottawa, ON native, was the AHL’s Rookie of the Month for December after putting up 12 assists and 14 points in 12 games for the Reign. In the 30 games that he’s played for Ontario, he has tallied seven goals and 32 points over that span. His 32 points are third in the AHL and lead all defensemen. What makes his 32 points in 30 games interesting is that he is only one of three defensemen to average more than a point per game with his 1.07 points per game.
Related: Kings Get Much Needed Offensive-Defenseman in Brandt Clarke
The eighth overall pick from the 2021 NHL Entry Draft has only played in nine career games for the Kings. He has two assists after making his debut back in October 2022 and looks to tally more in what he hopes is a longer stint with the NHL club. Clarke getting called up before the Red Wings game makes it interesting to see if the young blueliner will play in the game as it’s known that he will join the team on their upcoming road trip. The best guess of where he will be paired is probably alongside Andreas Englund giving Jordan Spence a game off. It will be something to keep an eye on depending on what head coach Todd McLellan wants to do with Clarke in the lineup going into or after the Red Wings game.
PL Dubois To Get Rolling
One player that Kings fans hope to get rolling consistently is center Pierre-Luc Dubois. The 25-year-old Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec native has 14 points in 34 games this season. That is currently eighth on the Kings which is not what the team or the fans want to see. He was involved in that mega-deal back over the summer that sent him from the Winnipeg Jets to the Kings which was followed by him signing an eight-year, $68 million extension. The hope was to see him be the prolific goalscorer that he is known to be per scouting reports. His seven goals are tied for sixth on the team and are 10 back of team leader Trevor Moore (17). However, his low-point total is not fully on him as McLellan has him playing a more defensive role on the Kings than he used to on previous teams.
Currently, McLellan has Dubois centering the third line alongside wingers Carl Grundstrom and Alex Laferriere. The style of play that is being asked of him is more defensive which is not something he has been asked to do in the past. When he was with the Jets and even with the Columbus Blue Jackets, he was mainly asked to center the first line with guys who were more offensive-minded and could score. Where he is at now, he is trying to play more defensively and be the guy who has to set up everything on the offensive side of things with guys who aren’t well-known to be goal-scorers.
Related: Grading Kings’ Blockbuster Trade for Pierre-Luc Dubois
While Grundstrom does have seven goals and 11 points in 34 games, he isn’t usually known to light the lamp in vast quantities. Even Laferriere only has five goals and eight points in 33 games for the Kings this season. There are feelings around Kings fans that he is not being put in the best spot to succeed alongside guys who aren’t the type of players that Dubois is used to centering a line for. The hope is for Viktor Arvidsson to come back from injury and maybe play him alongside Dubois on the third line. However, there has been a case to swap him and Phillip Danault so he can center the second line with wingers Kevin Fiala and Moore. If the Kings want to get the most out of the guy they traded for and extended, it might be best to put him in a place to succeed. To give Dubois credit, he has gotten better in his defensive game over the recent stretch of games despite the losing streak.
Juicing Up Adrian Kempe
They say the juice is worth the squeeze, and that is what the Kings are getting with being patient with the development of Adrian Kempe. After getting drafted 29th overall by Los Angeles in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft, He is a reason to show teams why they need to be patient with prospects who aren’t lighting the world on fire early in their NHL careers. Thankfully they did and now they have a player in Kempe who could be with the team for a long, long time.
The most points Kempe put up in a season before he broke out in 2021-22 was back in 2017-18 where he had 16 goals and 37 points in 81 games. The most goals he had in a season was that previously mentioned 16. However, he went on to have a breakout season in 2021-22 that saw him have then career-highs in goals (35), and points (54). There was a hope that he could be an elite scorer when he was drafted, but the way he just burst onto the scene took everyone by surprise.
Related: Kings’ Kempe One of League’s Most Underrated Goal Scorers
People around the league wondered if he could do it again going into the 2022-23 season or if 2021-22 was an anomaly. As it turned out, it was not a one-hit-wonder season as he set career-highs in goals (41), assists (26), and points (67) in the first season where he played in all 82 games. He has not only burst onto the scene, he has taken it by force. He is considered to be one of the most underrated goal-scorers in the NHL.
After 34 games into the 2023-24 season, Kempe has 12 goals and 33 points being only one point behind team leader Anze Kopitar. He is three goals behind Moore who has 17 on the season. He has 21 assists which is second on the team behind Fiala who leads with 23. He is pretty much top three in all points categories on the Kings while being one point shy of being a point-per-game player. Only Kopitar has a point-per-game pace going with 34 in 34 games played. Either way, Kempe is a staple on the Kings and could be in for another huge season for the black, white, and silver.
Home Cooking Before Road Trip
As mentioned earlier, the Kings are going on a six-game, 10-day road trip after playing the Red Wings at home on Jan. 4. The hope is to split the two home games in the first week of the month before traveling to the East Coast and Texas to finish the trip. If they can manage to play a full 60-minute game, there is a solid chance the Kings could come home with the two points. They have had games where they start slow and play in the last two periods or start strong but falter later on due to too many penalties. As long as the Kings just play their game, start strong, and stay out of the penalty box, they will win the game versus Detroit.
Puck drop is at 7:30 pm PT on Bally Sports West and the game will be on LA Kings Radio Network on iHeart Radio.
