Kings glad to be again on residence ice, beating Sharks after seven-game journey

The NHL season turned three weeks outdated Friday, simply hours after the Kings performed on residence ice for the primary time.

“It’s undoubtedly odd,” captain Anze Kopitar mentioned Thursday, earlier than the Kings performed at Crypto.com Enviornment for the primary time in 175 days to beat the San José Sharks 3-2 earlier than a sold-out crowd of 18,146. “Finish of October. So a bit totally different.”

The Kings had been compelled out of their constructing for the primary seven video games of the season by the third part of a multimillion-dollar renovation of Crypto.com Enviornment, which turned 25 this month. If you happen to depend a preseason spent partly in Utah and Quebec, the journey lasted greater than a month, making the Kings the final crew within the league to play at residence.

Learn extra: Kings end long season-opening trip with loss to Vegas

Six others have already got performed 5 video games on their residence ice. And there’s little doubt that put the Kings at a drawback. Not solely had been the gamers away from their households, but in addition the house crew places its sticks down final on face-offs, enhancing its possibilities of profitable the drop, and will get the final change on substitutions after a whistle, permitting it to take advantage of matchup benefits.

“That’s large,” mentioned Kings TV analyst Jim Fox, who performed 9 seasons within the NHL.

That’s not the one benefit of coming residence.

“The followers,” Kings president Luc Robitaille mentioned, “make the home-ice benefit.”

“You possibly can slice it a bunch of various methods,” second-year coach Jim Hiller added. “There’s a familiarity together with your routine. If you eat, what time you get in your automotive, what the rink appears like. And I feel for us, on this time particularly, it’s simply coming residence, getting some contemporary air, likelihood for folks to see households once more.

“All people’s in a reasonably good temper.”

In all probability as a result of they performed so properly on the highway, taking eight of a potential 14 factors within the seven video games. However then lengthy highway journeys are nothing new to the Kings, who needed to vacate their area 20 occasions within the final 24 seasons to make means for the Grammy Awards. These multiweek journeys typically come within the lifeless of winter; beginning the season on the highway, Hiller mentioned, is significantly better.

“When you get deeper in, it’s mainly as should you’ve received a battery. Your battery begins to dwindle so these journeys on the finish actually zap you,” he mentioned. “At the start all people’s contemporary, hungry, excited.”

“As a result of it’s a bit bit unprecedented, we’ve got to watch out,” he added. “There’s a giant image that goes on.”

For a crew welcoming greater than a half-dozen new gamers, a protracted highway journey additionally generally is a bonding train, particularly this early within the season.

“You get new guys, you wish to spend as a lot time as you possibly can,” Kopitar mentioned. “From that perspective, the journey was actually good.”

A type of new gamers, Warren Foegele, who left Edmonton to signal with the Kings (4-2-2) in July, launched himself to the brand new followers by scoring twice within the first 12 minutes Thursday in a sloppy sport through which the Kings went to the penalty field eight occasions and gave up two power-play targets to San José (0-6-2).

“First time being on this dressing room,” mentioned Foegele, who mentioned he wanted assist discovering the locker room. “That is most likely the rink I performed within the second most. It was good to be on the facet.”

After seeing the final three seasons finish in first-round playoff losses to Foegele’s Oilers, Robitaille mentioned it was apparent the crew needed to do one thing totally different — apart from altering the schedule — if it wished totally different outcomes. So along with including Foegele, the Kings traded underperforming ahead Pierre-Luc Dubois and the $59.5 million left on his contract to the Washington Capitals for goalie Darcy Kuemper, signed defenseman Joel Edmundson to a three-year contract and traded for winger Tanner Jeannot and defenseman Kyle Burroughs. The crew additionally ditched its plodding 1-3-1 impartial zone entice in favor of extra offensive-minded 1-2-2, a formation Kopitar mentioned has made the crew dynamic.

Extra productive too, with the Kings averaging greater than 31 photographs a sport, fourth finest within the 16-team Western Convention.

“We’ve modified our roster,” mentioned Robitaille, whose crew additionally must discover a technique to overcome the lack of stellar defenseman Drew Doughty, who will miss at the very least half the season after present process surgical procedure to restore a fractured ankle. “The most important factor this 12 months was to vary a bit bit the identification. Greater than a 3rd of our crew has modified. So it’s going to take time for our guys to play precisely the way in which we would like them to play.”

Beginning the season with seven straight highway video games will assist forge that identification. However Robitaille sees a good greater benefit: The Kings have already got performed 17% of their highway schedule.

“You’ve received to play 41 video games on the highway whether or not you play them within the first week or the final week,” he mentioned. “We might complain about it and different groups complain about it, however each crew has some schedule points. It’s simply a part of it.

“You simply transfer on and make one of the best of it and also you come out of it. If you happen to’re forward, you’re higher for it.”

Learn extra: Can the young Ducks finally migrate into the playoffs?

This story initially appeared in Los Angeles Times.