12/29 Preview – No Lineup Changed Expected + Competing With The Best, Kopitar In, Anderson on Forsberg, Crown Jerseys

TODAY’S MATCHUP: As they visit the NHL’s top team tonight in Colorado, the Kings will look to build off of their strongest performance of the season thus far, a 6-1 win over Anaheim on Saturday evening.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: In the first game of the season between these two teams, forward Anze Kopitar collected an assist in the third period, coming on Kevin Fiala’s power-play goal. Over the last four seasons, only St. Louis’ Robert Thomas has more assists against Colorado than Kopitar, who has totaled 11 helpers in 10 games played in that span. Since he entered the league in 2006, no NHL player has more assists (46) or points (65) against the Avalanche than Kopitar.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings held an optional morning skate today in Colorado, following a full-team practice yesterday at Toyota Sports Performance Center.

Look for netminder Anton Forsberg to get the start in goal again tonight. Forsberg made 25 saves on 26 shots against the Ducks to earn his sixth victory of the season. He’s allowed three or fewer goals in each of his five starts while Darcy Kuemper has been out with an upper-body injury and he has posted a .917 save percentage during the month of December.

Here’s how the Kings lined up on Saturday against Anaheim, with no changes expected tonight in Denver –

Tonight’s @LAKings Line Rushes –

Laferriere – Kopitar – Kempe
Foegele – Byfield – Moore
Fiala – Turcotte – Kuzmenko
Armia – Helenius – Perry

Anderson – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Dumoulin – Ceci

Forsberg
Copley

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) December 28, 2025

Coming off a convincing victory, no changes are expected tonight for the Kings. Should any be required, forward Jeff Malott and defenseman Jacob Moverare are options to check into the lineup this evening.

AVALANCHE VITALS: Colorado has been far and away the best team in the NHL this season, as they enter tonight’s action with just two regulation losses and a league-leading 63 points.

Per Evan Rawal of the Denver Gazette, here’s how tonight’s hosts lined up last time out against Vegas –

Landeskog – MacKinnon – Necas
Lehkonen – Nelson – Nichushkin
Olofsson – Colton – Brindley
Kelly – Drury – Kiviranta

Toews – Makar
Manson – Burns
Girard – Malinski

Wedgewood

— Evan Rawal (@evanrawal) December 28, 2025

The Avalanche have been led this season by forward Nathan MacKinnon, who is currently building towards the Hart Trophy this season as the NHL’s most valuable player. MacKinnon leads the league with 31 goals and ranks second with 64 points. He also leads the NHL with a +47 rating and has been on the ice for 67 goals at even strength this season, 11 more than the next closest player.

Storyline Of The Day – Waiting On That Springboard
“If you want to build on something, go in and beat the best team in the league in their building.”

That was Jim Hiller on Saturday evening, speaking after a 6-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks. He was asked about how the Kings can take a very good showing in that game and start to build some consistency off of it, to see that type of game more and more regularly.

Saturday’s win was great. But this should be the last time we reference it. Now, the Kings move on and they’ve got to take thatwin and build on it. The Kings haven’t taken care of business this month against the teams they’ve played towards the bottom of the standings. Now, in order to build on Saturday, they’ll have to do it against the NHL’s best.

Hiller’s answer is spot on. You want to make a statement? You want to show that this team is better than its record thus far? Go in and hang with the best.

Easy to say it. Much harder to do it.

The Kings are certainly not favored tonight. A neutral party wouldn’t expect them to win. But if they were to go into tonight’s game off of any singular performance, you’d certainly want it to be Saturday’s, which was as good an offensive night as the Kings have put together all season.

“[It’s] a big challenge, but I think you get a game like [Saturday] and you feel a little bit better about yourself, you go in there in the right frame of mind and see if you can’t get that done,” Hiller added. “Then, you can start building upon that area.”

The Kings do feel good. And they should.

For all of the frustration that this season has brought – and there has been much – they let a lot of that out against the Ducks this weekend. Four goals in the first period and six goals in total. For a team that ranks 31st in the NHL in goals scored this season, those are massive numbers. Coming into Colorado, that’s a decent game to try and build on.

“They’re the best team hockey right now, so we know we’re up against a big challenge, they’ve got a lot of big players over there too,” forward Quinton Byfield said of tonight’s matchup. “So, that game was huge, winning at home. We just want to carry that momentum and be able to feel good and bring that energy over there.”

Colorado leads the NHL in several categories. Among them is goals scored, with 148, which is 51 more than the Kings have scored this season in the same number of games. That’s more than a goal-per-game on average. The top four players in the NHL this season in plus/minus are Avalanche players, including MacKinnon, who is +47 in just 37 games played. That’s on pace to not just set an NHL record but shatter it.

If you think that the way to beat the Avalanche is simply to outscore them, though, you might want to think again. Also among the categories the Avalanche lead the NHL? Goals against, with 85. It’s in that way that the teams are most alike. Colorado ranks first and Los Angeles ranks tied for second.

What makes this team so dominant, though, is that they score goals with the best of them and they prevent goals with the best of them. They do it in ways that no other team in the NHL does it. So that’s what the Kings are facing tonight.

“They track hard and they defend hard, for as much as they score,” defenseman Mikey Anderson added. “It’s not an easy game. It’s a game you’re excited to get up for as a player and you’re ready to play.”

Within that is an opportunity. The Kings have that here tonight. An opportunity to show that they can string consecutive good performances together and an opportunity to do so against the best team in the NHL. They’ll have to play their style of hockey, finding the balance between checking at the top of their game but also creating chances and opportunities like they did against the Ducks. When they get those looks, they have to be opportunistic, as they were on Saturday.

The odds tonight aren’t in the Kings favor. If they lose, no one was looking at this one as a circled win. Often times, though, that’s where the best opportunities come from. When it’s not expected. And that’s the opportunity the Kings have here tonight.

“That’s just it,” Hiller said, agreeing with the opportunity. “You’re always looking for a springboard, whether it’s playing well, getting two or three in a row. Coming off the last game, coming in here and beating them in this building I think would do a lot for us and this season, just general confidence. We want a hard game, we want to beat somebody where it’s really, really hard. Sometimes, that can really springboard you.”

3 To Watch For –
– Anze Kopitar will play tonight. Darcy Kuemper will not.

Kopitar had a maintenance day yesterday but was on the plane with the Kings yesterday afternoon and was on the ice for morning skate today in Colorado. Doesn’t seem to be anything really of concern there for the captain and he’ll be in his usual role against the Avalanche.

For Kuemper, he did not make the trip, as expected. He’s working his way back, slowly yet steadily, from an upper-body injury that has sidelined him for five games. If this was a longer trip, with practice days, I think Kuemper would have been on it. With just the morning skate and one game, though, it didn’t make a ton of sense, considering he’s not yet ready to play.

Getting closer, though. Expecting Kuemper to continue to get some work on his own back in Southern California and we’ll get a better sense of where he’s at in advance of Thursday’s game versus Tampa Bay at home.

– In Kuemper’s stead will be Anton Forsberg, who has delivered thus far with Kuemper out of action.

“Really good. Even last game, we talked about it, he had a couple big saves when it was 1, 2, 3-0, one of those goes in and the whole flow of the game can change,” Anderson said of Forsberg. “He’s been big. He talks a lot, he keeps things looks, he’s kind of like Darcy and it’s a good combo to have back there. Obviously we have Copper too when we need him and he’s good, so it helps us feel confident with what we need to do, knowing we’ve got them behind us.”

The Kings will certainly need Forsberg tonight. The NHL’s highest-scoring team is on the other side of the ice, afterall. Among the 60 goaltenders with at least 500 minutes played this season 5-on-5, Forsberg’s .926 save percentage is tied for the ninth best. Colorado has scored 15 more goals 5-on-5 than the nest closest team. The Kings need a big night from Forsberg, certainly, in a game like this.

– Lastly, for all of you uniform nerds out there, the Kings will wear their black, third jerseys tonight in Colorado with the matte black helmets.

It’ll be the first time seeing these jerseys on the road this season, with Colorado expected to wear their white jerseys. The Kings will wear these uniforms again in Anaheim in a few weeks as well to complete the road schedule, while continuing to wear them on Saturdays at home as well. Was a little bit weird to see the black helmets during morning skate today on the road, as the Kings home and away wear white helmets during just about every pre-game skate.