The Los Angeles Kings’ training camp started yesterday, with a roster which features 24 forwards, 13 defensemen and five goalies. Here’s the full roster, along with some thoughts on which players we can expect to make the final roster and taxi squad.
FORWARDS (24): Mike Amadio, Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Lias Andersson, Andreas Athanasiou, Dustin Brown, Jeff Carter, Aidan Dudas, Mikey Eyssimont, Samuel Fagemo, Martin Frk, Carl Grundstrom, Alex Iafallo, Boko Imama, Adrian Kempe, Anze Kopitar, Rasmus Kupari, Blake Lizotte, Matt Luff, Tyler Madden, Trevor Moore, Drake Rymsha, Akil Thomas, Gabriel Vilardi, Austin Wagner
DEFENSE (13): Mark Alt, Mikey Anderson, Daniel Brickley, Kale Clague, Drew Doughty, Sean Durzi, Olli Maatta, Kurtis MacDermid, Jacob Moverare, Markus Phillips, Matt Roy, Austin Strand, Sean Walker
GOALIES (5): Troy Grosenick, Jacob Ingham, Jonathan Quick, Cal Petersen, Matthew Villalta
The notable omissions from the camp roster are Tobias Bjornfot, Quinton Byfield, Arthur Kaliyev and Alex Turcotte, who are currently playing in the World Juniors tournament.
Up front, there are 12 forwards who are essentially locks to make the final roster, being Amadio, Athanasiou, Brown, Carter, Frk, Iafallo, Kempe, Kopitar, Lizotte, Moore, Vilardi and Wagner. Then we can bet that Dudas, Eyssimont, Fagemo, Imama, Kupari, Madden, Rymsha and Thomas are long shots to make the roster out of camp. This leaves Anderson-Dolan, Andersson, Grundstrom and Luff to fight for spots on the roster/taxi squad. We can't forget about the possibility of players who are away at the World Juniors potentially earning spots as well.
On the blue line, we know that Drew Doughty, Olli Maatta, Matt Roy and Sean Walker will have lineup spots, while Kurtis MacDermid will likely be a spare (non-taxi squad). Mikey Anderson is also likely to earn a spot in the lineup, while Kale Clague will be fighting to win a spot as well. After that, there are six other defenders on the roster and we’ll likely see a couple of them on the taxi squad. These defensemen are: Mark Alt, Daniel Brickley, Sean Durzi, Jacob Moverare, Markus Phillips and Austin Strand. If I had to guess the most likely option to be on the taxi squad, it might be Mark Alt, based on the fact that he does have a little bit of NHL experience.
In net, it’s clear that we’ll see Jonathan Quick and Cal Petersen as the Kings’ two goalies throughout the season. That said, the Kings will have to keep one goalie one their taxi squad and we can predict that’ll be Troy Grosenick, just based on the options available. Matthew Villalta has just one year of professional hockey under his belt (and his stats were poor at best), while Jacob Ingham is fresh out of junior hockey. As a result, we can bet that Grosenick, who’s been an AHL regular for the majority of the last decade, will be the spare netminder.
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Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
Who do you think is most likely to play games with the Kings this season?
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