12-6 Preview – Iafallo Activated, Will Play Tonight + New Lines, Copley To Start, Kempe at Center

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• News post

• Zach Dooley

The Kings are back on the road, as they open up a six-game trip against the Eastern Conference, beginning tonight in Ottawa.

• Alex Iafallo
• Alex Edler
• Adrian Kempe

• Todd McLellan

# Todd McLellan

Before I [summarize Alex Iafallo] I’ll qualify that he’s been out for, what, eight weeks, it’s been a long time, so for us or anyone else to think he’s going to come in and wave the magic wand and be the savior, I think that’s very unfair for him or any other player coming back in that in that situation. When he is up and running, and playing to his capacity, he’s a very trusting player on both sides of the puck, he can play on both special teams. Interestingly enough, when you’re talking to teammates about who would you like to play with, sometimes coaches ask that question, number 19 comes up an awful lot. I think that’s a real compliment that one teammate can pay the other.

[Adrian Kempe] will play [center], he’ll start there tonight, it gives us a little more size through the middle, a little more speed. He entered the league in that position, we still believe that he’s a really good winger, but right now we’ve got to spread the depth out a little bit that we have, so we’ll play him there.

To be quite honest, we haven’t seen a lot of him, obviously exhibition season there wasn’t much. We watched some of the games in Ontario, we’re busy enough that we can’t watch them all, so we rely on our scouting department, our goaltending department, but he has experience. He has experience out East and he’s played against these teams before. He’s big, very athletic, he seems to be very confident. A lot of good, attributes to have in a goaltender.

# Alex Iafallo

Just come back, play my game, be consistent with a good, 200-foot game. I just want to keep it simple out there, play how I know and try to do everything right, as best I can, not make many mistakes. I’m just going to play in each zone as hard as I can and be simple with that.

For sure, I already have good communication with [Adrian Kempe and Gabe Vilardi] so it’ll be fun playing with them, they’re doing great so far. I’ve been playing with them for the last couple of years, it’ll be good to transfer it over and start this game off.

# Adrian Kempe

I think the d-zone is going to be fine, I’ve played in those situations before and just like any other game on the wing, if you’re the first guy back you take care of that. I don’t think that’s going to be the biggest issue.

I played one period as a center last game and it was exciting. I felt like I can get a little bit more speed coming through the middle, where as a winger, maybe you get a little more 1-on-1 with the D and stuff like that. I feel like AI and Gabe are so good with the puck and so good on the walls that if they can find me through the middle with a lot of speed, I think it can be a good thing for the team and for our line.

 Obviously, faceoffs, I haven’t been taking them in awhile either, so that’s going to be important. I think having Gabe on the line helps for strong-side faceoffs. I feel comfortable on my backhand already and having him as a righty on other side could probably be a good thing, we’ll talk about it before the game.