1/10 Preview – A Good Plan Is Your Best Defense + Shoot-First Mentality, Second Game Success, Faith in Forsberg
WHO: Los Angeles Kings (18-15-10) vs. Edmonton Oilers (22-16-6)
WHAT: 2025 Regular-Season Game 44/82
WHEN: Saturday, January 10 @ 7:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Rogers Place – Edmonton, AB
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: FanDuel Sports Network – AUDIO – ESPN LA 710 AM, ESPN LA App & LA Kings App – TWITTER: @jaredshafran & @lakings
TODAY’S MATCHUP: In their second game in as many nights, the Kings are in Edmonton to go up against the Oilers on Saturday at Rogers Place, renewing the Pacific Division rivalry for the first time this year.
HEAD-TO-HEAD: LA took three of four regular season meetings against Edmonton last year before falling short to the Oilers in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in six games. Quinton Byfield, Warren Foegele and Adrian Kempe each recorded a three-point outing against the Oilers last season, with Foegele totaling five points against his former club (2-3=5), which tied for the team lead in scoring for the series along with Kempe (1-4=5). In postseason play, Kempe led the way offensively once again, posting 10 points in the six-game series on four goals and six assists, while Anze Kopitar totaled nine points on two goals and seven helpers. Drew Doughty is LA’s leading career regular season scorer vs. Edmonton among the team’s healthy skaters with 43 points from 61 matchups against the Oilers on 13 goals and 30 assists.
KINGS VITALS: With today’s game serving as the second half of a back-to-back after travel from Winnipeg to Edmonton last night, the Kings did not hold a team morning skate.
Below, a look at how the healthy group aligned in warmups before a 5-1 loss to the Jets –
Tonight’s @LAKings Line Rushes at WPG –
Malott – Laferriere – Kempe
Foegele – Byfield – Ward
Fiala – Turcotte – Kuzmenko
Lee – Helenius
Anderson – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Dumoulin – Ceci
Moverare
Kuemper
Forsberg
— Jared Shafran (@jaredshafran) January 10, 2026
At the current time, it’s unknown whether the Kings will have any additional players available to them up front for tonight’s contest. They’ve been without Trevor Moore, who has missed the last five games due to an upper-body injury and was placed on injured reserve Thursday. In addition, Anze Kopitar and Joel Aremia have both missed the last two games with upper-body injuries and Corey Perry has been away from the team due to a family illness.
If any of those four forwards are ready to return tonight, they’d certainly be added into the lineup, which has consisted of 11 attackers and seven defenders in each of LA’s last two contests. Another option to check in up front is forward Cole Guttman, who was recalled from Ontario on Thursday. Guttman hasn’t appeared in an NHL game since Jan. 19, 2024, when he was a member of the Chicago Blackhawks, but has produced 23 points in 31 AHL games this year for the Reign on nine goals and 14 assists.
Before Friday’s matchup with Winnipeg, Jim Hiller said that he expected to play Darcy Kuemper against the Jets and Anton Forsberg in Edmonton vs. the Oilers. It turned out that Forsberg entered the crease earlier than expected, coming on in relief of Kuemper at the start of the third period. After the game, Hiller confirmed the plan would remain unchanged for tonight, and it’s expected that Forsberg will make his 15th start of the year. Forsberg’s career numbers vs. Edmonton include a 1-3-1 record in five starts with a .922 save percentage and a goals-against average of 2.85.
OILERS VITALS: Edmonton secured a come-from-behind 4-3 road win over Winnipeg on Thursday night, which has them tied for first place in the Pacific Division after 44 games with an overall record of 22-16-6 and 50 points. The Oilers are 11-5-3 at home and have six wins from their last 10 contests. Although they got off to a slower start than expected, having a share of first place halfway through the year puts them in contention to make another long postseason run like they have the past two seasons, which ended with losses to Florida in the Stanley Cup Final.
Per Oilers reporter Tony Brar, here’s how Edmonton lined up at morning skate today –
EDM lines & pairings — Saturday’s Morning Skate:
RNH – McDavid – Hyman
Podkolzin – Draisaitl – Kapanen
Howard – Roslovic – Savoie
Janmark – Lazar – Frederic
Mangiapane
Ekholm – Bouchard
Nurse – Emberson
Stastney – Regula
Walman
Ingram
Pickard
Jarry#Oilers
— Tony Brar 🚀 (@TonyBrarOTV) January 10, 2026
To no one’s surprise, Connor McDavid has been scorching hot for the Oilers as of late. After posting a goal and an assist in the team’s most recent win, McDavid now has a 17-game point streak, tying a career-high, during which he’s scored 18 goals and 41 points. He’ll look to establish a new career best and make it 18 straight with a point this evening. Overall, McDavid is nearing the 80-point mark with 29 goals and 48 assists for 77 points through 44 games. Leon Draisaitl has also appeared in each of the team’s contests this season and has 61 points on 21 goals and 40 helpers.
McDavid has racked up 44 points during his regular season career against LA on 17 goals and 27 assists, while Draisaitl has 12 goals and 23 helpers for 35 points against the Kings. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has played more regular season games against LA than any other Oiler, scoring 26 points in 45 appearances on 12 goals and 14 assists.
Edmonton made a splash last month by trading for goaltender Tristan Jarry, but the netminder is currently on injured reserve and won’t be available tonight after suffering an ailment in his third start with the Oilers. Others currently on injured reserve for Edmonton include Adam Henrique and Jake Walman.
With Jarry not available, Connor Ingram is expected to get the start in net over Calvin Pickard, who most recently made 13 saves in the win over Winnipeg. Since also joining the Oilers midseason, Ingram has seen action in five contests, securing a 3-2-0 record with a .891 save percentage and a 3.02 goals-against average. Lifetime against LA, Ingram is 0-3-1 with a .867 save percentage and a 3.53 goals-against average in five appearances.
Storyline Of The Day – A Good Plan Is Your Best Defense
A common cliché heard all too often throughout sports from coaches and players is that they’re concerned with themselves, not their opponent. Saying the focus is on ‘controlling what we can control’ and aiming to play their best, no matter who they’re up against.
In some cases that can be true, but when you go up against this current iteration of the Edmonton Oilers and their two future Hall of Fame forwards in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, you have to be ready for what you’ll be up against and concern your team with their approach.
The good news for the Kings is that they’re as familiar with Edmonton and their two superstars as any other team in the league, with the Oilers being a divisional opponent during the regular season, and then there’s the four consecutive playoff matchups, each of which has been won by the team from Alberta.
Sometimes the plan coming in for the Kings has worked, and other times it hasn’t. And a lot of LA’s success against the Oilers has come during the regular season, which is a completely different animal than a seven-game playoff series. Separating those two situations from each other, the Kings took three of four from Edmonton in the regular season a year ago, albeit when the Oilers were missing some key players who were out with injuries, and now the shoe is on the other foot coming into tonight’s matchup.
Looking further back, the Kings were 1-2-1 against the Oilers in 2023-24, 2-2-0 vs. Edmonton in 2022-23 and 1-2-1 in 2021-22. Yes, none of it mattered because of the failures in the playoffs, but those teams all still qualified for the postseason.
After last night’s loss in Winnipeg, I asked Jim Hiller what his immediate thoughts were as he got set to turn the page to the next game on his team’s schedule in Edmonton. He replied that he wasn’t thinking about the matchup yet and still had his attention on reviewing what went wrong against the Jets. That’s fair, the Kings didn’t have their best in that contest, and there’s plenty to learn from in the immediate aftermath.
But Edmonton is not a team you can just show up for. There’s the strategy aspect of trying to defend a team that’s ranked fourth in the league offensively and is capable of an outburst at any time. It’s especially tough when you’re on the road, without the luxury of the last change to secure the matchups you’d like to have.
Without a morning skate to work through any of these plans on the ice, the Kings will have to prepare away from the rink today and then focus on their pregame meetings to talk through the strategy they’ll aim to employ against the Oilers.
One of those items to concentrate on against Edmonton is special teams play. While the Oilers weren’t as effective on the man-advantage last season, finishing 12th in the league with a 23.7% power play success rate in 2024-25. This year, they’ve boosted the unit’s numbers with 41 goals from 120 opportunities, converting at a 34.2% clip, which makes them the only team in the NHL above 30%. They’ve been just as good at home as on the road, tying for a league-high 21 tallies in only 19 games at Rogers Place.
The easiest way to stop that type of unit is to not give them opportunities. The Kings had two or fewer penalties in two of their three regular season wins over the Oilers last season, with the third being an outlier that got out of hand with 69 total PIMs during a lopsided 5-0 victory for LA. Penalties happen, but the Kings, who average almost 3.5 minors per game, an elevated number from a year ago (3.1), will definitely be focused on staying out of the box tonight.
With some new faces in the lineup that aren’t as familiar with the series history, like Taylor Ward and Andre Lee up front, as well as Brian Dumoulin and Cody Ceci on the back end and Anton Forsberg in net, the Kings will be looking to wipe the slate clean and do the necessary things tonight to secure two points from a tough place to win.
3 To Watch For –
-Quinton Byfield scored the lone goal for the Kings in Friday’s loss, his seventh tally of the season.
It wasn’t a highlight-reel play, but one you can point to as a reward for going to the front of the net. Byfield was near the crease, got pushed into the blue paint, and saw the puck deflect into the goal off his skate after a shot by Warren Foegele got tipped by the stick of Taylor Ward.
The Kings will be looking for more of those types of plays, ones that don’t require the type of high-end skill that Byfield possesses. Goals like that count the same as some of the others we’ve seen the center score over the last four seasons that he’s been in the NHL, they just don’t get talked about as much.
Byfield now has four points from his last four games, with a pair of goals and assists. He’s on pace for a 50-point campaign, which would be the third consecutive year he’s reached that mark. He’s playing more minutes on average than ever, over 20 per night. And yet, self-admittedly, he’s still not where he wants to be.
There was a moment last night in the second period where he had the puck on his stick in the offensive zone near the right-wing circle. There was space to try and put the puck toward the net with a shot, but instead, QB opted for a cross-seam pass, which didn’t connect with his intended target and resulted in a lost opportunity.
Byfield alluded to that moment when he spoke after the game.
“I feel like there was a lot of bounces out there today that were unfortunate, but there was also some on us, there’s some chances I would like back where maybe I overpassed instead of shooting,” said Byfield.
It’s not the first time this topic has been brought up this season, but that change in approach still hasn’t quite set in for the 23-year-old.
“I think my instincts have always been pass-first, so obviously got to switch that mindset,” Byfield said. “We’ve got some key guys out right now, a lot of guys who get that production done for us and some guys got to step up, myself included. I’ve got to be a little bit more selfish and just take some to the net and fire a couple more.”
Jim Hiller had some more pointed comments about his team’s approach when asked about that specific opportunity Byfield passed up.
“We had a handful of those, that one is probably the most obvious example,” Hiller said. “You have to shoot the puck. You’re a team that’s not scoring a lot of goals, you’ve got to direct everything and you get anything inside that slot area, I don’t think we have to overthink it. It’s kind of an old story for us this year. There’s not a real good answer for that. You have to take your shot.”
Against a high-powered Edmonton offense that can put up plenty of goals, but also a team that has struggled defensively, the Kings can’t afford to pass on their opportunities and will need to make the most of them tonight.
– “I think the best thing we’ve been good at is when we have a poor game, and coming back from it.”
That was Jim Hiller speaking after his team wasn’t able to close out a game on New Year’s Day against Tampa Bay. It’s also the last time they had lost in regulation before yesterday’s defeat in Winnipeg.
The Kings responded two days later with a gutsy shootout win over a very good Minnesota team and then doubled down in their next effort against the Wild to get a second consecutive victory in regulation. There are a few different examples of that type of response this season, including another recent stretch that saw them go into the league’s holiday break with a loss to Seattle, then emerge from the time off with an emphatic 6-1 win in a rivalry game against Anaheim.
As for how they’ve done when a response is needed going into the second of back-to-back games, like today in Edmonton, there’s a lot to like in those results.
Ironically, the problem has been more with the first game of the back-to-backs. Saturday’s matchup is the seventh time the Kings will play on two consecutive days this season, and they’re 0-4-3 in the first games, still searching for a win in that situation.
But in the second game, LA has gone 4-1-1 from the first six occurrences, with impressive wins in Vegas on Oct. 8, in Chicago on Oct. 26 against Vancouver on Nov. 29 and most recently in Tampa Bay on Dec. 18. The only time they’ve lost in regulation in the second game of a back-to-back this season was that defeat vs. Seattle on Dec. 23.
There’s one common thread from all those winning performances: Anton Forsberg was in goal for each one of them.
– And finally, yes, as mentioned above, Forsberg is expected to get the start for the Kings in tonight’s game.
Against a team like Edmonton, and Kings fans know this well, there’s usually some extra responsibility added to the goaltender that’s in the crease against the Oilers. They use speed, can attack from anywhere, and make it extra tough on netminders.
Prior to entering the game in the third period on Friday, Forsberg hadn’t played since the Kings’ last matchup of 2025, a 5-2 loss to the Avalanche in Colorado on Dec. 29, where he allowed four goals on 25 shots.
Maybe playing the final 20 in a lower-leverage situation with his team down by four and Winnipeg not attacking much allowed Forsberg to shake off any rust from the 10 days in between appearances.
“I don’t think it can hurt,” Hiller said of the third period being a warmup of sorts for the goaltender. “You don’t want to run him too hard, but he got a period. He didn’t get much action, I think they only had a couple shots, but still, you’re in there. He hasn’t played in a while so that should be able to help him.”
Tonight will be the first taste Forsberg gets of the Kings/Oilers rivalry, and his team will need him at his best.
It’s LA and Edmonton tonight with the Kings looking to bounce back at Rogers Place. The puck drops at 7 p.m. Pacific! You can tune in on FanDuel Sports Network and listen live on both 710 AM in LA and the ESPN LA App.
