With Alex Iafallo returning, Kings are not done tinkering with lineup

Last updated Dec 7, 2022 Edit Source

• News post

• Andrew Knoll

The winger, who has been out since mid-October, could play as early as Tuesday, and the Kings seem poised to move sniper Arthur Kaliyev to the top line and drop Adrian Kempe to a third line with Gabe Vilardi and Iafallo

• Alex Iafallo
• Arthur Kaliyev
• Adrian Kempe
• Tobias Bjornfot
• Brandt Clarke
• Cal Petersen
• Pheonix Copley
• Sean Durzi

• Todd McLellan

# Todd McLellan

We miss [Alex Iafallo] in a lot of different situations, (both) with and without the puck. He’s a trusting player.

I think if we were lucky enough to be in the playoffs starting tomorrow, we would have a good idea of the six (defensemen) that we would want to start, and we would run them right into the ground, for lack of a better term, with a seventh and an eighth ready to go. We have a pretty good idea of that, but we’re only 27 games in and we’re to keep everybody on board because as we saw last year, you never know when you’ll need them.

[Pheonix Copley] is part of our team. We’ve got a really good goaltender in Jonathan Quick, who’s played over 700 games, so somebody to play minutes, good minutes, strong minutes, confident minutes is strong for us. That’s what we think of him, that’s how we’ll use him.

# Sean Durzi

We have a lot better (game), and I think that just comes down to accountability. That’s something that we’ll look at and we’ll be better for.