12-8 Preview – Optional Morning Skate + Durzis Homecoming, Third Line Assessment, Facing The Leafs

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• News post

• Zach Dooley

The Kings continue on their Eastern excursion this evening in Toronto, with the final game of the season against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

• Sean Durzi
• Alex Iafallo
• Adrian Kempe
• Sean Walker

• Todd McLellan

# Sean Durzi

Yeah, it’s super exciting to think about. My first NHL game I ever watched, growing up there as a fan, I’ve been multiple times to watch hockey games and watch my favorite players play. Now, to play there and to have those kids looking at you now as one of those guys, it’s exciting. I have a lot of friends and family who are excited about coming to the game and I’m looking forward to it.

I grew up a Leafs fan and as I went through my first draft and didn’t get picked, I kind of just started liking hockey, more than just teams, when maybe I thought I should have been with a team. Now, there’s a little bit of excitement, but at that time, I was as much a hockey fan as I was any team.

# Todd McLellan

[Sean Durzi]’s been a great find for our hockey club. Very competitive first of all, we can talk about passing, playmaking and power play, but his competitiveness is the number-one thing that he has, it shows up every night and he lays it on the line. He has a lot of courage on the ice and sometimes tries things that other defensemen don’t, but that’s what makes Sean Durzi, Sean Durzi and we’re fortunate to have him.

That’s the first time they’ve been together, period, in that type of formation, you can go back to any time over the years. [Adrian Kempe] going back into the middle is not an easy task when you spent that much time on the wing, but he did a real good job, I thought he had a lot of pace through the middle, we were looking for that. Iafallo coming back in the lineup had an immediate impact on the group and Gabe continues to do some really good things. Maybe not as much on the scoresheet lately but we appreciate the other things that he’s doing. It makes it an effective line.

200-foot challenge, they’re playing very well defensively. There’s always the offensive challenge of shutting them down, their power play, their key guy and their ability to score, but their goaltending has been really good and they’re committed to playing a full, 200-foot game. That makes it tough on teams, but we know it’s coming and we have to be prepared for it.

# Adrian Kempe

I think it’ll come well, obviously me and AI played most of last year together, me and Gabe have played a little bit and at the start of the season they played really well together. Hopefully we can all move along with that, but I thought the chemistry was there last game. I think we talked a lot on the bench and before the game, that’s something we’ve got to keep doing and just have our game keep getting better and better.

It’s a lot tougher, especially on the road, for teams now to match up just against two lines. We feel like we have three, four some nights, that can contribute. The nights we’ve been successful, we’ve had all four lines going.

# Sean Walker

I think we definitely have the firepower, we don’t need to be going out there and making boneheaded plays or trying to cheat for offense, anything like that. If we just play our game, guys are good enough on our team that they’re going to make plays, our power-play is clicking and we know the goals are going to come, we just have to focus on the defense.