12/17 Preview – Forsberg’s Time + Facing Florida no easy challenge, Kuzmenko aiming for consistency, More respect for captain Kopitar
WHO: Los Angeles Kings (14-9-9) vs. Florida Panthers (17-13-2)
WHAT: 2025-26 Regular-Season Game 33/82
WHEN: Wednesday, December 17 @ 4:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Amerant Bank Arena – Sunrise, FL
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: FanDuel Sports Network – AUDIO – ESPN LA App & LA Kings App – TWITTER: @jaredshafran & @lakings
TODAY’S MATCHUP: The Kings take on the Florida Panthers later today, the second road contest of a three-game trip this week and their second matchup of the season against the two-time defending Stanley Cup Champion.
HEAD-TO-HEAD: Wednesday’s matchup will complete the 2025-26 series between the two clubs. Florida earned a win from the first battle last month in LA by a final score of 5-2. Anze Kopitar and Corey Perry scored the goals for the Kings in the first period of that contest, which had them leading for a short time before the Panthers scored four straight. Last season, the two clubs met twice in a much shorter span during January, with LA claiming game one at home by a 2-1 score before falling 3-0 in the Sunshine State.
KINGS VITALS: After electing to spend Monday night in Dallas, the Kings had a day off the ice yesterday as they traveled east. The day off Tuesday led to a full team morning skate today.
That included forward Quinton Byfield, who missed Monday’s game in Dallas with the flu. Jim Hiller confirmed that he is expected to return to the lineup this evening against Florida, while Phillip Danault, who has missed the last two games with an illness remains sidelined.
Darcy Kuemper is also not available after being placed on injured reserve Tuesday. The team’s No. 1 netminder was injured in Monday’s loss and is now unavailable for a minimum of seven days. Anton Forsberg, who appeared in relief two days ago, was the first goaltender off the ice, indicating he’ll make his 10th start of the season in net. Forsberg also started against Florida last month in LA, making 19 saves in a losing effort. Forsberg has a career .929 save percentage and a 2.86 goals-against in seven appearances vs. the Panthers.
With one of their top centers added back into the fold, here’s how the Kings aligned during this morning’s on-ice session –
Laferriere – Kopitar – Kempe
Fiala – Byfield – Foegele
Kuzmenko – Turcotte – Moore
Armia – Helenius – Perry
Anderson – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Dumoulin – Ceci
Moverare
Forsberg / Copley
It seems as if Alex Laferriere will move back to the wing after centering a line in Dallas on Monday, and Andrei Kuzmenko, who netted the lone Kings tally against the Stars, will play alongside Alex Turcotte and Trevor Moore. Byfield should be reunited with Kevin Fiala, and Warren Foegele could be in line for a bump in minutes, rounding out that trio. Despite all the recent movement among the forwards, the Kings are expected to keep their defensive pairings unchanged. The extra blueliner, if necessary, is Jacob Moverare.
PANTHERS VITALS: Florida is playing some of its best hockey of the season as of late, winning five of their last six outings with recent defeats of Columbus, the New York Islanders, Utah, Dallas and Tampa. The Panthers got off to a slower than expected start, and are currently two points out of the final wild card spot and five behind Detroit for the Atlantic Division lead with a record of 17-13-2 and 36 points through 32 games.
Per Jameson Olive with the Panthers, here’s how Florida lined up at morning skate today –
#FlaPanthers lines this AM
Luostarinen – Lundell – Reinhart
Verhaeghe – Bennett – Marchand
Greer – Rodrigues – Samoskevich
Kunin – Gregor – Boqvist
D is mixing and matching a bit with Forsling not skating.
Studnicka is out there, but not taking rushes.
— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) December 17, 2025
Olive also noted that Paul Maurice confirmed they’ll have Daniil Tarasov in net, who will make his second career start against the Kings. Tarasov’s only prior appearance against the Kings came in March of 2023 as a member of Columbus and he was pulled after allowing four goals on 27 shots in 33:48 of action. This season, the 26-year-old has a record of 3-5-1 in 10 games for Florida.
The Panthers are also without veteran forwards Aleksander Barkov, who is out for the season after suffering a significant knee injury during training camp, as well as Matthew Tkachuk, who has not yet suited up this season after helping the team to their championship run in June.
37-year-old Brad Marchand leads Florida in scoring this season, posting 35 points from 31 games on a team-best 19 goals and 16 assists. In 24 career games against the Kings, Marchand has 28 points on 18 goals and 10 assists, including two tallies in LA during the teams’ most recent battle on Nov. 6. Sam Reinhart, who scored twice in the team’s most recent win against Tampa Bay, is second on the team with 17 goals and 32 points. Both Carter Verhaeghe and Anton Lundell have totaled 26 points with an identical 10 goals and 16 assists. Seth Jones, who is in his first full season with the Panthers on the back end, leads the team’s blueliners with 19 points on five goals and 14 helpers.
Storyline Of The Day –
With Kuemper placed on injured reserve, the Kings will turn to Anton Forsberg, who is thrust into the spotlight as their new No. 1 option in goal for at least a little while here.
Forsberg, who signed a two-year contract with the Kings at the start of free agency last summer, is not new to the league or this role, as he is currently in his 11th NHL season. This situation is one of the reasons he was an attractive fit for LA to join the roster behind Kuemper.
In fact, for the 33-year-old, historically he’s at his best when he gets the most playing time, which is true for most netminders. The more reps they can get, the more comfortable they’ll feel in the crease. For Forsberg, who had his best statistical season during 2021-22 when he made 44 starts for Ottawa and finished the campaign with a career-high 22 wins and a .917 save percentage, this is where he can prove he’s most valuable.
“He’s definitely found his game this past month or two, and he’s been playing awesome,” said defenseman Joel Edmundson after Forsberg’s play in Seattle last week. “It doesn’t matter who’s in net for us, we’re definitely comfortable, and he’s been playing great hockey.”
The matchup with Florida specifically represents a second chance for Forsberg, who had his low point of the season thus far in last month’s loss to the Panthers. After allowing five goals, the Harnosand, Sweden native had to wait nine days before he got his next opportunity in net, a game he made the most of by stopping all 17 shots he faced to record his first shutout as a King in Ottawa against his former team.
Forsberg also started in San Jose on Nov. 20 and made some big saves late to help his team stay in the game and eventually earn a point from a shootout loss to the Sharks, stopped 19 of 20 shots to record a 2-1 win over Vancouver on Nov. 29, and also had one of his better performances of the year with 30 saves a week ago in Seattle before coming on in relief Monday against Dallas.
After the Kings fell short in overtime against the Kraken last week, Jim Hiller also had praise for Forsberg’s efforts, saying he felt he played a pretty good game. He pinned the loss on some of the mistakes that his skaters made that gave Seattle extra opportunities to tie up the game late.
“I think if we go back to his last three or four starts, he’s really seemed to find his groove,” Hiller said. “Whether he’s playing on five or six days rest, or it’s been longer this time around, he’s really found a groove for us and we’re really happy with what he’s given us here.”
It wasn’t an easy situation to come into on Monday, which saw Forsberg enter the game with four minutes to play in a scoreless first period. But the team in front of him helped as much as they could by not allowing any shots on goal between when he entered and the first intermission. Forsberg then stopped eight of nine shots that came his way in the second, allowing LA to score first which saw them in the lead for four minutes before Matt Duchene tied the score at 15:42 of the second.
The third and final period wasn’t great for anyone wearing a white sweater two days ago, as the Kings were out-shot 12-4 and allowed two even-strength goals before pulling Forsberg for an extra attacker late which led to a final empty-net strike.
“He was excellent,” said Hiller. “The pad save he made in the second period, just holding it out. Tough situation to come into, but you couldn’t ask for anything more from him.”
Brandt Clarke also had lots of good things to say about what he’s seen from Forsberg as of late.
“He’s been a rock for us recently,” Clarke mentioned earlier today. “We’re thrilled to have him back there, he’s a rock. He’s kept us in a lot of games recently. We have the utmost faith in him in net and he’s earned that because he’s been incredible. We just have to provide the offense to win the game.”
With the absence of Kuemper, who Hiller recently referred to as his team’s backbone, tonight it will be up to Forsberg to help stabilize a group that has lost three straight and is looking to right the ship. Here’s to hoping he takes that bull by the horns.
“It’s a big test against Florida,” Hiller said today after morning skate. “I’m sure he’ll be excited and ready to go.”
3 To Watch For –
– It’s certainly much harder to come away with a win in Florida now than it was for most of the Panthers’ existence. The team has surged and with that has come an improvement in almost every area, especially their record at home.
This season, which started slower than the defending champs would have liked, their 10 home wins are still tied for third-most in the Eastern Conference. A year ago, they were 27-12-2 and the previous campaign finished within a game of that at 26-13-2 on their way to the franchise’s first title.
Things didn’t go the Kings way here last year, they surrendered a first period goal to Sam Bennett and two third period tallies to Barkov and Tkachuk in a 3-0 loss, but LA is 2-1-1 overall from their last four games in Sunrise, and have been led by Anze Kopitar who has three points in those contests (2-1=3).
Also scoring goals during the recent history in Florida has been Adrian Kempe, Drew Doughty and Trevor Moore during a 4-1 win that came almost four years ago to the date on Dec. 16, 2021, a 4-3 win in January 2023 and a 3-2 overtime loss early in 2024.
“They’ve been around for a long time,” Hiller said of his leadership group and their success. “Anytime that we’ve had a poor game, last game wasn’t a poor game necessarily but the third period we didn’t like, they show up to play. Against a team like this, we have a lot of pride, so it’ll be a tough game.”
Another veteran who knows a thing or two about playing against Florida is Corey Perry, who has 31 career regular season and 16 postseason games under his belt against tonight’s opponent.
“They’re in your face,” said Perry of the way they’ve had success. “They’re coming forward, they’re physical, they do the same thing over and over again and it’s repetitive, but it works. I’ve seen it firsthand.”
The 40-year-old had a positive outlook on tonight’s contest, one that is definitely expected to have a physical element.
“I think we can match up well against them because we’re big, we’re physical as well,” Perry added. “We can skate, we can move the puck, and whatever team does that the best is probably going to have a good chance to win.”
For some of the younger skaters on the Kings, like defender Brandt Clarke, who is in his second full NHL campaign, the history against the Panthers doesn’t mean as much.
“They just put it deep and then they’re coming,” said Clarke on what he’s noticed about Florida when he’s gone up against them. “They have guys up front who are big, strong, but also super skilled so if you give them an inch they’re going to take a mile. We just got to play with it down in their zone as much as we can, make them defend and try to break out effectively when needed because when they hem us in that’s when they’re dangerous.”
After the way the last few games have gone for the Kings, it should be an easy one to get up for, despite all the miles they’ve traveled over the last three days leading up to the contest.
“These are always fun games, when you know it’s going to be emotional,” Perry said. “You know it’s going to be physical, it’s exciting. Especially now when we’re getting close to Christmas, everybody’s thinking about that break but tonight’s a good one.”
– It’ll be a different set of circumstances for Andrei Kuzmenko tonight, who is expected to shift out of a top-6 role after joining his old linemates Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe in Dallas on Monday.
After sitting him for multiple games against Seattle and Calgary last week, Jim Hiller mentioned that he wanted to bring Kuzmenko back with an opportunity to get more minues. That’s what he had two nights ago and, although he mentioned it was more of a lucky bounce, he did score the team’s only goal of the night during a 5-on-3 power play opportunity.
This morning, Hiller complemented Kuzmenko’s game and felt it was a step in the right direction for him.
“He had three or four chances and had another good chance on the power play, the goalie made a good save,” Hiller said. “He beat somebody one-on-one out of the corner which is what he does, he uses his skill to beat people. So yeah, coming back in it was a good performance from him.”
Kuzmenko, who now leads the team with four power play goals this season, has racked up nine total points on the year. But while he is still expected to retain his role on the team’s top man-advantage unit, Kuzmenko skated alongside Alex Turcotte and Trevor Moore in rushes this morning.
Still a lot of speed and skill on that line, as both of the Russian’s linemates know how to move their feet and work hard in the offensive zone.
Wednesday’s matchup against Florida will be the first time Kuzmenko’s has been to Sunrise as a member of the Kings, but he has three points in his last two appearances at the building with a goal and two assists. That includes a game-winning goal as part of a two-point performance on Oct. 21, 2023, while he was a member of the Vancouver Canucks. In total, Kuzmenko has four points in six career games played vs. the Panthers on two goals and two assists.
– As it is with all of these east coast buildings, tonight will be the final matchup for Anze Kopitar against Florida. It will be his 30th regular season matchup against the Panthers, and he is the Kings all-time leader in goals (9), assists (18) and points (27) against the franchise during his 20-year career.
Florida’s Sam Bennett, who was asked about the Kings captain this morning, had some strong praise for what he does on the ice.
Tonight’s game will be the last the #FlaPanthers ever see of Anze Kopitar in the regular season.
Bennett: “He’s an unbelievable player. He’s got an incredible resume. One of those guys that’s just really well respected around the league.”
— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) December 17, 2025
Nothing new for the Kings and Kopitar to be universally praised around the league, but still nice to note as the leader’s farewell tour continues in Florida this week.
The Kings and Panthers will get going at 4 p.m. Pacific time this afternoon! Another FanDuel Sports West broadcast today with John Kelly alongside former Kings forward Tony Granato, and if you’re driving home from work you can hear Josh Schaefer and Daryl Evans on the ESPN LA App, as well as the LA Kings App.
