WHO: Los Angeles Kings (34-20-9) vs. Washington Capitals (43-14-8)
WHAT: 2024-25 Regular-Season Game
WHEN: Thursday, March 13 @ 7:30 PM Pacific
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: FanDuel Sports Network – AUDIO – ESPN LA App – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings
TODAY’S MATCHUP: The homestand continues this week for the Kings, as they host the Washington Capitals for a Thursday-night showdown in Downtown Los Angeles.
HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Capitals were victorious in the first meeting of the season between the two clubs, as they extended their winning streak against the Kings to three games.
Forward Kevin Fiala scored the only goal for the Kings in that game, giving him three goals over his last two games played against Washington. Since joining the Kings, Fiala has four points (3-1-4) from five games played versus the Capitals.
KINGS VITALS: The Kings held an optional morning skate today, in advance of tonight’s game against Washington.
Goaltender Darcy Kuemper did not skate this morning and appears to be in line to make his second straight start, coming against the team that traded him to the Kings over the summer. Kuemper, who played two seasons in Washington, has only faced the Capitals four times throughout his NHL career, posting a record of 1-3-0, with a .907 save percentage and a 3.07 goals-against average.
With the optional skate, no formal line rushes for the Kings, but with no lineup changes expected, here’s how they lined up last time out –
Kuzmenko – Kopitar – Kempe Foegele – Danault – Moore Fiala – Byfield – Laferriere Jeannot – Helenius – Turcotte
Lewis – Thomas
Anderson – Doughty Gavrikov – Spence Edmundson – Clarke
Moverare – Burroughs
Kuemper / Rittich
With the group above, some players skated during practice yesterday, others skated this morning and some skated both days, with yesterday’s practice and today’s morning skate both optional. Expecting the Kings to use the same lineup tonight as we’ve seen now over the past three games, all victories.
Should the Kings opt for any changes, they have two forwards (Trevor Lewis, Akil Thomas) and two defensemen (Kyle Burroughs, Jacob Moverare) who are ready to check in if needed.
CAPITALS VITALS: Washington enters tonight’s game as the number-one team in the NHL, with a league-best .723 winning percentage.
Per the Washington team account, here’s how tonight’s visitors lined up last time out in Anaheim –
Lineys!#CapsDucks | @JackDaniels_US pic.twitter.com/IwF6lrI6Jl
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) March 12, 2025
Naturally, the focus tonight for the Capitals is on three players.
First, Alex Ovechkin and his pursuit for Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal record. He’s nine away and it isn’t that farfetched to think it could be his final game in Los Angeles if he breaks the record this season.
Secondly, it will be the first game back in Los Angeles for defenseman Matt Roy and forward Pierre-Luc Dubois. Roy played nearly 400 games with the Kings after he was drafted by the franchise in 2015. Dubois spent just one, disappointing season in Los Angeles after he was acquired last summer from Winnipeg and signed to an eight-year contract. Both are expected to be in the lineup tonight against the Kings.
Storyline Of The Day – Storylines For Days
Feels as if there are like a million storylines for this game, doesn’t it?
Jim Hiller joked that everyone the media scrum today should give back half of their paycheck with how easy this one is to write about. He’s not wrong there.
Let’s start team-wide.
Big game tonight in Los Angeles!
The @LAKings are the only team in the NHL with a home winning percentage over .800. Washington is the only team in the NHL with a road winning percentage over .700. Strength vs. strength. Should be a fun one.
— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) March 13, 2025
First things first, tonight’s game squares off the NHL’s number-one team at home versus the number-one team on the road. At 21-3-4, the Kings have compiled a winning percentage of .821 at Crypto.com Arena this season, by far the best mark in the NHL. On the flip side, Washington has actually performed better on the road than at home and leads the league at .742 away from DC. Truly is a strength-versus-strength situation.
“We know our challenge,” Hiller said. “They’re coming in as, we believe, one of the top teams in the league, just generally. Big players, physical team, two guys that have played for us, Ovie chasing the record……it’s going to be a good game, really.”
Secondly, we re-visit a summer trade, as Darcy Kuemper and Pierre-Luc Dubois square off for the first time on their new clubs. Kuemper was the backup in his return to Washington in December, as it was a back-to-back situation and he played the first half. Dubois had two assists in the first game of the season, a 3-1 Capitals victory.
It was a weird trade over the summer that has worked out for both parties. In many ways, at the time, it was a contract dump for a contract dump. Two players who in 2023-24 did not match their performance to their salary-cap hits. They’ve both seemingly turned it around here in 2024-25, with Kuemper becoming the number-one goaltender the Kings needed. His season thus far should have him in the conversation for being a Vezina finalist. Dubois has 57 points with a career-high 40 assists, showing himself to be a version of the player the Kings thought they acquired.
“A lot of times, everybody goes into a trade thinking it’s win/win and I don’t know if there’s been a trade like this one where it’s benefitted both teams pretty much equally,” Jim Hiller said. “That one’s a win-win, that’s one, I think, that everybody can feel good about.”
That’s not to validate the original trade for Dubois, because there’s no validating that trade and how it set the Kings back. Rob Blake has owned that trade from his perspective and Dubois did the same, via Eric Stephens of The Athletic HERE. It’s obviously an easy one to dwell on because the Kings clearly missed. But the silver lining, I suppose, is that Kuemper has done a terrific job this season in goal, so you can at least say the trade was salvaged.
While I imagine there will be a ton of animosity tonight from the fans towards Dubois, the players haven’t expressed any, publicly at least. Forward Phillip Danault admitted over the summer that the trade set the Kings back as a franchise but personally, there are no hard feelings that things did not work out.
“I talked to him when we were in Washington for a little bit, but he seems like he’s found the right fit there, for him, and I’m happy for him,” Danault said. “He’s going to play hard. He was the first star in Washington and I’m sure he’s going to try to do it again.”
Tonight also marks the return of defenseman Matt Roy to Los Angeles. Roy was a good King, rising up from a seventh-round draft pick, through the American Hockey League into an NHL regular on the second pair behind Drew Doughty. Always been a Matt Roy fan, going back to when I worked with the Reign and saw the qualities he brought at that level. He’s had himself a strong season, with a +27 rating that ranks sixth in the NHL among defensemen. Good on him.
Lastly, there’s the Alex Ovechkin angle. Ovechkin is chasing down Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals mark and enters tonight’s game nine shy of surpassing it. Ovech-Trick anyone?
Am I the only one who remembers this commercial? Probably won’t be tonight but I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t be upset if it was!
3 To Watch For –
– From a Kings-specific standpoint, they obviously can’t have a repeat of Tuesday’s game.
If the Kings give Washington eight power plays, Ovechkin might actually hit the record tonight.
“We won’t kill eight against them, I can tell you that,” Jim Hiller said this morning.”
It’s better to win ugly than lose pretty at this time of the year, so the Kings will take the two points against the Islanders and move along. They know they had luck on their side, though, and they’ll need to clean things up tonight in order to find a result against a different caliber of opponent.
“It’s unacceptable to have that many penalties,” defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov said. “We’ve got to be better than that. Great job by the killers and Darcy, he made some huge saves for us and he kept us alive.”
Starts with limiting those penalties for sure. Because, it’s not just the penalties specifically. It also limits the icetime of several players who aren’t penalty killers and puts players who you want to be creating offense into killing-only roles, which is very taxing.
Look, I think it was a one-off in that area. All-in-all, discipline has been good of late. But the Kings need to be certain it’s a one-off.
“They just kept piling on, so we definitely have to be more disciplined, keep our sticks down and, for me, keep the puck in play,” defenseman Joel Edmundson added. “[Ovechkin] is a threat out there, he’s one of the best scorers of all time, so we have to limit their chances.”
– On forward Alex Laferriere, he’s in a bit of an offensive drought, personally, although it certainly hasn’t impacted the productivity of his line.
Laferriere hasn’t scored since the first game back from the 4 Nations break, when he buried one against Utah and he has just one assist in the nine games since. His linemates have continued to produce in that span, as Quinton Byfield has nine points (4-5-9) and Kevin Fiala has seven (3-4-7), so it isn’t like Laferriere has been ineffective. He just isn’t producing, individually.
“Obviously you would like to score every game,” Laferriere said. “It’s been a learning curve. I think the start of my year kind of felt like it was going to be like that but I think when you’re not scoring, you’ve got to find other ways to be effective and balancing those guys out right now is the way that I can be effective. As long as those guys are going then we’re doing good.”
For Laferriere, he added that as long as his line is producing and the team is winning, he’s good with it. He certainly wants to produce to contribute in that way and it’ll come back around, as it has for him earlier this season. But as long as things are going well, the important thing is that he’s not pressing and he’s not worrying.
– Lastly, sharing a video with a look towards the future.
A focus on three forwards within the Kings system of prospects – Liam Greentree, Ryan Conmy and Koehn Ziemmer. A good listen, if you’ve got some time.
Kings and Capitals. Should be a really fun one tonight between two teams with something to prove. Puck drops at 7:30 in LA for a sold-out building!
