When the Kings and Ducks last met, the mission for both clubs was to get back on track.
Now, with back-to-back Freeway Faceoffs in Los Angeles on Friday and Anaheim on Saturday, each rival is twice as desperate.
Since the Kings evened the season series on Dec. 27, both they and the Ducks have continued to struggle.
The Ducks entered the prior matchup with seven of their previous 16 possible points in tow, and since then have collected just three of their next 16. The Kings have won only three of nine subsequent games, continuing to dangle near the pit of the league in goals for, wins and regulation wins.
The two nemeses will lock horns twice and the good news might be that one of the two slip-sliding sides will get two points each time out in these jam-packed standings. In the Pacific Division, four points separate four teams and in the wild-card race, nine points separate nine teams.
“Back-to-back games against L.A., we’re fighting for the same airspace right now,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “Every shift’s going to be important and there’s going to be enthusiasm in the crowd.”
Both teams have also been missing key components up front. The Kings were once again without captain Anže Kopitar (lower body), shorthanded guru Joel Armia (upper body), Swiss Army knife Trevor Moore (upper body) and the tenacious Corey Perry (personal) in Wednesday’s 3-2 overtime loss to Vegas. Against Dallas on Tuesday, the Ducks were missing their top three scorers this season in Leo Carlsson (lower body), Troy Terry (upper body) and Cutter Gauthier (illness), as well as cornerstone turned forgotten man Frank Vatrano (shoulder).
The Kings were off on Thursday, so there were no updates on their four injured attackers. Wednesday, they iced an 11-7 configuration that was effectively 11-6, with depth defenseman Jacob Moverare playing just one shift that lasted 22 seconds. Over time, the 11-7 has lost its luster for the Kings, going from a 13-2-1 mark in 2023-24 to 13-8-4 last year, with most of the success frontloaded, to winning none of the four matches where they utilized the alignment this season.
Per multiple reports from Ducks practice, both Terry and Gauthier were on the ice while Carlsson was not. Vatrano is still working through a six-week timeline for his return.
For the Ducks, nine of their next 11 games will be against divisional opponents. The Kings will kiss off the Pacific briefly after these two games, but will play five straight intradivisional tilts spread across the beginning and end of the Olympic break next month.
While the Ducks at least broke a nine-game freefall over which they gave up 45 goals with a structured, persistent 3-1 display against the Stars on Tuesday, the Kings have been waiting all season for their offense and overall game to find rhythm.
They’re 10-0-2 when scoring four goals or more, but have done so in consecutive games just three times this season. They’ve scored two or fewer goals in more than half of their 46 outings, winning but five of those 24 affairs. They’re a mere two tallies above the rock bottom offenses in the league, St. Louis and Calgary.
Yet Kings coach Jim Hiller once again addressed the fans and media as if they had never seen a hockey game before, while continuing the rainmaking and gaslighting that has constituted the Kings’ cant under team president Luc Robitaille’s dominion.
“Hockey is a funny game. Lots of different things can happen during the course of a game,” Hiller said. “If we play like this, those good things will come our way. I’m extremely confident of that.”