1/31 Preview – Kopitar is Back + Trip-Ending Opportunity Awaits, No Morning Skate, Armia at Center, Clarke’s Assists

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The Kings are 2-1-0 on what is now a five-game roadtrip, as they enter into a trip-ending back-to-back this weekend, beginning this afternoon in Philadelphia.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Six Kings players had multiple points when these teams met in Philadelphia last season, including forward Kevin Fiala, who buried two goals in the 7-3 victory. Fiala added a goal when the teams squared off in Los Angeles and has collected six points (4-2-6) from six games played against the Flyers as a member of the Kings organization. Forward Andrei Kuzmenko played seven games with Philadelphia last season and will square off against his former team for the first time since the Flyers traded him to the Kings.

KINGS VITALS: Considering the early start time, the Kings did not hold a morning skate in advance of today’s game in Philadelphia.

Would expect the goaltenders to likely split the games this weekend but unclear what the breakdown will be between Darcy Kuemper and Anton Forsberg. Should Kuemper get the nod, he earned the victory with 23 saves in Philadelphia last season, a 7-3 Kings win. Should Forsberg get the nod, he has excellent career numbers against the Flyers, with a 5-0-1 record, a .920 save percentage and a 2.32 goals-against average.

Without a practice or a morning skate, here is last game’s lineup for reference –

Tonight’s @LAKings Line Rushes –

Perry – Laferriere – Kempe
Moore – Byfield – Foegele
Fiala – Armia – Kuzmenko
Malott – Helenius – Ward

Anderson – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Dumoulin – Ceci

Kuemper
Forsberg

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) January 29, 2026

Jim Hiller is expected to address the media from Wells Fargo Center closer to puck drop today, so we’ll learn if there are any potential lineup changes coming out of that availability. Should the Kings make any moves, forward Kenny Connors and defenseman Jacob Moverare are options to check in, while forward Anze Kopitar would need to be activated from injured reserve in order to return to the lineup.

FLYERS VITALS: Philadelphia enters today’s action on a three-game losing streak and has lost 10 of its last 12 games, with a 2-8-2 record in that span.

Per Bill Meltzer of the Flyers team website, here’s how the hosts lined up on Thursday against Boston –

Flyers have changed all four forward line combos:

Nikita Grebenkin — Christian Dvorak — Travis Konecny
Matvei Michkov — Trevor Zegras — Bobby Brink
Denver Barkey — Noah Cates — Owen Tippett
Nic Deslauriers — Sean Couturier — Garnet Hathaway

Travis Sanheim — Rasmus…

— Bill Meltzer (@billmeltzer) January 30, 2026

The Kings will face former Ducks forward Trevor Zegras tonight for the first time as a member of the Flyers. Zegras ranks second on the Flyers in goals (19), assists (27) and points (46) so far this season. Philadelphia is without forward Tyson Foerster due to injury. Foerster led the Flyers with three goals and four points against the Kings last season.

Storyline Of The Day – Opportunity Hasn’t Changed
No better matchup to showcase the disparity between the Eastern and Western Conference this season.

The Kings and Flyers each enter tonight’s game with 57 points on the season. The Flyers have two more wins and three more regulation wins than the Kings do, meaning that if the two teams were in the same conference, Philadelphia would hold the tiebreaker.

In the standings, the Kings are two points back of a playoff spot with games in hand. The Flyers are eight points out of a divisional playoff berth and ten points out of a wild card spot, sitting second to last in the conference.

Just been that kind of season on a number of levels.

Philadelphia has fallen on hard times of late after a pretty encouraging start under Rick Tocchet. They’re a pretty deep team up front, but they fallen off the pace of late in the Eastern Conference. They’re still a relatively young team, without a true superstar, so it’s understandable.

If you’re the Kings, despite having an equal point total to the Flyers, you’re much closer to where you need to be. And, in looking at this game, it’s one you have to find a way to come away from with the two points. The trip thus far has gone relatively well. Kings squeaked one out in St. Louis and thoroughly deserved their win in Detroit. They played alright in Buffalo, couple unlucky goals against, couple questionable officiating decisions, but they lost 4-1. Alright won’t win as often as the Kings need to.

Los Angeles hit the road understanding where they were in the standings and the opportunity ahead of them with six games away from home. One cancellation aside, the opportunity is still there. Winning two of three is a solid enough start. But two wins in total is a bad trip. Need more and today’s game is the next chance to get one.

As Jim Hiller put it after the Sabres game, the focus all shifts quickly to the Flyers.

“We’re disappointed, because the effort was there, that part of the game we can’t complain about that in any respect, but we have to park it, we’re done with this, just like we were done with the Detroit win, just like we were with the St Louis win and we’ve got to move on. Philly game becomes our focus really quick.”

So now we’ve reached the final two days of the trip. The Kings are in Philadelphia for a Saturday matinee before they fly to Carolina after the game, where they’ll meet the Hurricanes tomorrow afternoon. Both teams play today – Los Angeles and Carolina – so there’s no real advantage at play. If anything, the Kings have the easier schedule, playing earlier in the day than the Hurricanes do.

It’s two chances at a winning trip. Two chances the Kings should be keen to take. It starts tonight against the Flyers, which should have 100 percent of the focus, with the opportunity to guarantee the winning trip this afternoon in Philadelphia.

“We still have a chance to make it a really good road trip,” defenseman Cody Ceci said. “There are some positives to [the Buffalo] game and then there’s some things that we need to clean up. We have been playing well on the trip so far, so hopefully we can play well again and get the results done.”

3 To Watch For –
– Anze Kopitar is back!

Jim Hiller confirmed this morning that Kopitar will play today against the Philadelphia Flyers. Kopitar has missed the last 12 games with a lower-body injury but will return to the lineup this afternoon. Hiller did not share where Kopitar might slot in, so we’ll wait until warmups for that note.

For Kopitar to play, he needed to be activated from injured reserve, which required a corresponding roster move. The easiest version was Alex Turcotte moving to injured reserve, since he’s guaranteed to miss the required number of days with a retroactive designation, as he’s already departed the team with an upper-body injury. Those moves were executed this morning.

For Kenny Connors, it’d be a nice story. Local guy, from Pennsylvania, would be a really cool story for his debut. But sentiment shouldn’t drive roster decisions. As I said above, had the Kings won last night, I’d be shocked if they deviated from a lineup that would have beaten the NHL’s two hottest teams in consecutive games, minus the return of their captain. If Connors goes in, it should be on merit, not sentiment. I think if Kopitar was not ready, Connors would have gone in. The Kings are very, very thin at center, he could’ve helped in that area. Connors will get his games in time, but a win is the only priority. If he helps in that regard, he should go in today. If not, he shouldn’t play for the story of it all, in my opinion.

– I’ll say this. Joel Armia playing through the middle has not been a problem in my opinion.

Thought Detroit was his better game, but that goes for a lot of people. Looked just fine moving the puck in Buffalo too. I know it isn’t ideal by any stretch, but if the Kings continued with him in that position for tonight, at least until Kopitar returns, I wouldn’t have any problems with it.

“It’s a hard transition, you’ve got to have some real hockey sense, you’ve got to have some real defensive awareness and you’ve got to be committed to play down low,” Hiller said of going from wing to center. Those three things, you can say ‘oh, that’s pretty easy’. It’s not. The combination of all three, he’s just been able to do anything we’ve asked of him.”

Just a very smart player and one who I think has adapted about as well as you could have expected him to. Won a lot of faceoffs early in the Buffalo game, though he faded late. Think he’s done his part in that position, helping out at a pretty dire time in the season for LA Kings centers.

– Lastly, a Brandt Clarke statistic for you.

Clarke collected his 20th assist of the 2025-26 season in Buffalo on Thursday. He became the fourth defenseman this season selected in the 2021 draft or later to amass at least 20 assists this season, joining Montreal’s Lane Hutson, New York’s Matthew Schaefer and New Jersey’s Luke Hughes.

“He’s always going to have the physical and the offensive ability and that’s only going to grow,” Hiller said of Clarke. “I love the fact that he’s got the defensive game under him now and the sky’s the limit with him. He’s going to continue to get better. The skillset is there, but also the maturity and the mentality to want to be the best, he has those attributes too. Very much so.”

Kings and Flyers, penultimate game of this trip is on deck in Philadelphia. A big opportunity to guarantee a winning trip with a result today.