What you need to know ahead of the Kings' first preseason game against the Arizona Coyotes:
When: Friday, September 22 at 9:05 PM PST
Where: Rod Laver Arena (Melbourne, Australia)
Watch: NHL Network, ESPN+
Team Records:
Coyotes: 0 - 0 - 0
Kings: 0 - 0 - 0
The Kings and Coyotes are set to officially kick off the 2023-24 NHL campaign with the league's first preseason game of the season. As a part of the growing the game initiative, the Kings and Coyotes are down under in Melbourne, Australia for the NHL's Global Series. Tonight is the first of two games in Australia, with the second game being Saturday night.
You can see the full 27-man roster in Australia here.
Per Zach Dooley of LAKingsInsider.com, lines haved looked like:
Quinton Byfield – Anze Kopitar – Adrian Kempe
Trevor Moore – Phillip Danault – Viktor Arvidsson
Kevin Fiala – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Arthur Kaliyev
Carl Grundstrom – Blake Lizotte – Trevor Lewis
Jaret Anderson-Dolan – Alex Turcotte – Samuel Fagemo – Jacob Doty
Mikey Anderson – Drew Doughty
Vladislav Gavrikov – Matt Roy
Andreas Englund – Jordan Spence
Tobias Bjornfot – Jacob Moverare
Pheonix Copley / David Rittich / Cam Talbot
Both Todd McLellan and Rob Blake have confirmed that all 27 players who made the trip to Australia will feature in at least one of the two games. The Kings have 16 forwards and eight defensemen on the trip, meaning that eight forwards and four defensemen will play in both games. The understanding is that selected players towards the top of the lineup will play in both games, considering the showcase event here in Australia, but with a smaller group here, the bulk of the group here will play in both games.
Early indications are that we’ll see most of the bigger names here in Game 1 for sure and we’ll go from there. Assume we’ll see a decent split in net as well, with Copley and Talbot each likely to get a start here in Australia, with David Rittich also playing a part. At this stage in the game, the personnel is less important and all four lines will play relatively evenly throughout the two games.
