11-28 Practice – Vilardi and Iafallo Skate + Todays Alignment, Second Thoughts, Pinch Hitting

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• News post

• Zach Dooley

The Kings hit the ice for a quick team practice today in El Segundo, on the day in between last night’s overtime defeat against Ottawa and tomorrow’s rematch versus Seattle. A busy slate as of late, with much to improve upon, but balanced against the need to maintain energy levels throughout the course of the week.

• Gabe Vilardi
• Alex Iafallo
• Jaret Anderson-Dolan
• Jacob Moverare

• Todd McLellan

# Todd McLellan

[Gabe Vilardi] was on the ice yesterday too, yesterday in the morning state he was there, so just because he’s out there skating, don’t assume anything. I haven’t talked to the trainers, but he looked better.

Very good [to see him on the ice], [Alex Iafallo]’s a player we’ve missed. We miss him in a lot of different situations, with and without the puck. He’s a trusting player, an identity player who plays towards the identity most nights, so we miss him, but we’ll get him back eventually.

No – Sometimes you go back and watch the game again and you see something different, but no. We were on our heels for the first half of the game, outworked and I thought we were really stubborn, didn’t execute really well and when we changed our approach halfway through the night, it got a little bit better. Power play did a good job of bailing us out and giving us at least a point, Quickie as well.

They’re talking about being second, being late, being sloppy when they use those terms and that’s not what we want to be, but we were that for a significant part of the game. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, Ottawa is a really good team and they took advantage of it.

I would say the same thing for Lias as I said about JAD, it’s a tough job to do, but as you grow older in your career and you settle in, that could be your role and you have to be ready to go. Lias did a good job [on Sunday].

Mentally, you have to be strong, because it can wear on you when you’re told on a consistent basis that you’re not playing tonight. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes it feels like somebody’s telling you you’re not good enough to play. You are, we just have others that are doing things that we’re keeping in the lineup, so you have to be mentally strong and then you have to work at your craft because if you let it slip at all and you do get your chance and you don’t make good on it, then it’s harder for us to justify a return to the lineup. It could also indicate that maybe you went too long without playing and you need to play some games to get back up to speed. It’s a really tough task for certain players.