The Kings are down to one real roster call, and it may come down to a familiar question: do they carry three goalies, or not?
After another round of cuts, LA assigned promising forwards Kenny Connors and Jared Wright to AHL Ontario. Those moves help trim the group ahead of Monday’s deadline, but they also make the picture a lot clearer. The team is getting close to the version Peter Laviolette wants to dress for his fourth and final preseason game later today, and the lineup card should reflect a group that is, in his words, pretty, pretty close to the final version.
Connors and Wright were always logical names to send down, mostly because of their waiver status and the lack of a defined role on the NHL roster. None of that is a knock on their talent or long-term outlook.
In fact, both are expected back with the Kings. For now, they can go to Ontario without going through waivers, which matters at this point in camp.
Connors, in particular, makes a lot of sense in the AHL because he can play big minutes and be used in every situation night after night. He’s already viewed as a coach’s dream, and his stock is as high as it’s been inside the organization.
The only issue is that there simply isn’t room for him on the Kings’ 23-man roster yet.
Mats Zuccarello’s status only tightens the squeeze. Friday’s news pointed to him being ready to go, and if that holds, he takes up one of the available forward spots and makes an already crowded group even tougher to sort out. He was on the ice today without a red jersey, and based on the press scrum, it sounds like he’s playing in tomorrow’s preseason game.
That leaves the Kings with one more cut to make on defense, assuming Zuccarello is healthy and available. The long-running expectation has been that Erik Gustafsson would stay on the roster over Scott Perunovich, and that still appears to be the direction.
From there, the math gets messy fast.
The projected group, based on what Laviolette has recently shown in practice, looks like this:
Panarin - Byfield - Kempe
Zuccarello - Turcotte - Laferriere
Moore - Haula - Laughton
Armia - Helenius - Perry
Lee - Ward
Anderson - Clarke
Edmundson - Doughty
Dumoulin - Ceci
Gustafsson
Kuemper
Forsberg
Portillo
That list totals 24 players, and it still doesn’t include Fiala, who is set to begin the season on injured reserve. So even with that omission, the Kings are still one over.
At that point, the decision appears to hinge on whether Ken Holland wants to go with three goalies. If he does, then one of Andre Lee or Taylor Ward would have to go on waivers. If he doesn’t, then Erik Portillo would need to be assigned elsewhere, even though he’s waiver-exempt for now.
The goalie situation is crowded enough that the Reign already have their top two netminders in place, which adds another layer to the call.
Lee and Ward both bring their own complications if the Kings try to sneak them through waivers. Lee is the bigger concern.
At 6-foot-5, he had a breakout AHL season with 26 goals, and while he isn’t built around top-six NHL offense, he has drawn real praise this preseason for how much his overall game has grown. He’s also on a one-year deal worth $850K AAV, which could make him attractive to a team looking for size and depth.
Ward is a different case. He split time between the NHL and AHL last season and later landed a two-year extension. He got a long look in camp and showed well at times, but that extra term on his contract may be enough to make another team think twice if he ends up on waivers.
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For the Kings, the spotlight is on the fringe roster competition as Andre Lee, Taylor Ward and Erik Gustafsson continue to be evaluated in what could amount to their final auditions. In goal, Anton Forsberg and Darcy Kuemper are still competing for the No. 1 job, giving this exhibition another layer of meaning beyond the usual preseason tune-up as the team gets closer to locking in its opening-night picture. [Read more 🡒]
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