4/1 Preview – Lineup Changes Expected + Energy, Growing From Saturday, Playoff Race, Broadcast Details

TODAY’S MATCHUP: Coming off a convincing defeat on Saturday, the Kings continue on a season-long, seven-game homestand this evening as they host the St. Louis Blues, in a matchup between teams vying for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Forward Alex Laferriere has scored in both games versus the Blues this season, including a multi-point effort (1-1-2) in a 5-4 shootout victory in St. Louis back in January. Forward Adrian Kempe also has three points versus St. Louis this season and has seven goals and 12 points over his last 11 games played against the Blues since the start of the 2022-23 season.

KINGS VITALS: The Kings did not hold a morning skate today, considering the 6:00 PM puck drop and a full-team skate yesterday.

Nothing confirmed without a morning skate, but both goaltenders are likely to play one of the two games on the back-to-back set. Should Darcy Kuemper start this evening, he has a lifetime record of 12-6-1 against St. Louis, with a .913 save percentage and a 2.41 goals-against average. If the Kings go with Anton Forsberg, he has a 1-2-0 lifetime record versus the Blues but has yet to play against them as a member of the Kings.

Based on yesterday’s practice, here is a projected lineup for this evening’s game –

Panarin – Kopitar – Kempe
Moore – Byfield – Laferriere
Wright – Laughton – Armia
Joseph – Turcotte – Ward

Dumoulin – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Anderson – Ceci

Kuemper / Forsberg

Look for defensemen Brian Dumoulin and Mikey Anderson to swap spots, based on yesterday’s practice, covered HERE in more detail. Additionally, assuming everyone is healthy enough to play, expecting both Alex Turcotte and Taylor Ward to check in up front, in place of Samuel Helenius and Jeff Malott. More on those changes below.

BLUES VITALS: St. Louis saw its four-game winning streak come to a close, as it lost a nailbiter in San Jose last time out, after surrendering a goal inside the final 30 seconds of regulation to lose 5-4.

Per Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic, here’s how the Blues lined up last time out against the Sharks on Monday –

#stlblues projected lineup tonight at San Jose, per Blues:

Holloway-Thomas-Snuggerud
Neighbours-Buchnevich-Kyrou
Stenberg-Dvorsky-Berggren
Toropchenko-Finley-Suter

Broberg-Mailloux
Lindstein-Parayko
Fowler-Holl

Hofer

— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) March 30, 2026

Forward Jordan Kyrou scored two goals when these teams met in St. Louis back in January and has collected three points (2-1-3) in two head-to-head matchups this season. Kyrou is tied for the team lead with 17 goals this season and ranks third with 40 points.

Storyline Of The Day – Don’t Burn The Tape
Someone showed me a clip from former Kings Head Coach Todd McLellan the other day, speaking about where his current team, the Detroit Red Wings, are at. The long and short of it was that at this point in the season, we shouldn’t be talking about instilling competitiveness. But, that’s where his team is at and he’s under no illusions there, so he’s working on it.

Think the Kings are in a similar place.

We probably shouldn’t be talking about those things at this time of the year. The Red Wings used competitiveness, the Kings are using energy. That’s not where the focus should be entering Game 74. Those should be there every night and we should be looking at fine-tuning more specific areas of the game heading into these final games. On Saturday, the Kings had no energy in their game and lost by four goals. It should be there every single night, with ten games left in the regular season, with a playoff berth one point away, but it wasn’t, for whatever reason. Coming off that defeat, this is where the Kings are at and those things need to be in their game tonight. If they are, they’ll be in the fight with a good chance at winning tonight. If they’re not, they likely won’t have much of a chance.

If Saturday’s loss against Utah happened in November, if might be one of those days where everyone races to burn the tape. Those games do happen, for every team, over 82.

When you lose that game in late-March, with 10 games remaining, well you can’t do that.

You’ve got to look at it. Get pissed off about it. Learn from it. Motivate from it. Make sure if doesn’t happen again.

“If it’s early in the season, when you have 80 games left, you can flush it and forget about it, it’s not going to happen every night, but I think where we are as a team right now, with so little games left, we need to learn from everything,” forward Alex Laferriere said. “Games like that are going to happen – we obviously don’t want it to happen and need it not to happen – but it did happen and we need to learn from it and try to find the positives.”

The Kings got right back at it on Sunday with a practice split into two parts. The first was more structural, neutral-zone specifically, the kinds of things you should be working on at this time of the season. More specific details in the game. The second was driven by drills with 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 battles. Physical drills. Taxing drills. Drills we might not have seen otherwise, if the Kings didn’t lose 6-2 the day before.

Before that skate was the video session.

Often times, when the team is playing well, there are lots of clips of players doing things well in those sessions. There wasn’t all that much of that after the Utah game, though. Perhaps it was even more important to see things the other way.

“Sometimes, you’re the guy that’s hot on video, that day [though], a little more cold for guys, but it’s good for the group to see everyone is getting held accountable,” defenseman Mikey Anderson said. “We need it to get where we’re going, so you have to see it right now.”

Interim Head Coach D.J. Smith said that he has “no doubt in my mind that you’ll see our absolute best effort” in tonight’s game versus St. Louis. He said it with confidence. It’s good that he did.

Proof has got to be in the pudding, though. Nine games left and the Kings can’t really afford another dud like Saturday. If it was the reset moment, wake-up call or whatever cliche you’re feeling, things need to look a whole lot different tonight.

3 To Watch For –
– The Kings remain in a Western Conference playoff race right now, one that defenseman Brian Dumoulin summed up pretty accurately.

“No one is really taking matter into their own hands, so we’ve got to try and do that here on Wednesday and Thursday.”

The Kings have won just three of their last ten games and one from their last six. Seattle is similar, with three wins in its last 10, while Nashville is on a three-game losing streak. It’s allowed teams like Winnipeg and St. Louis to move within striking distance and teams like San Jose, with just four wins from its last ten, to remain in the mix as well.

As the games remaining column dwindles, it is becoming more and more likely that these teams are competing for one spot. Vegas and Utah are likely the only two other teams within reach, with each of those teams also winning just four times in their last ten games. At six points clear, though, it would require a real heater over the last nine games, combined with continuing to get help, despite the Kings having games in hand.

One the thing the Kings have gotten, though, is help. I was watching the Tampa Bay/Nashville game on Sunday and none other than Corey Perry scored a game-winning goal to give the Lightning the victory over the Predators. The gift that keeps on giving, I suppose.

Just one team under the current playoff format has qualified for the postseason with fewer than 90 points – the 2015-16 Minnesota Wild, which got in with 87. Feels like we might be adding to that list this season. The Kings have 76 points with nine games left, meaning they would need to win seven of those games – or maybe more like five wins and four overtime losses for this team – to get to 90 points. It’s a mudder, if you want to call it that, and one of those teams is going to win their share down the stretch to claim that final spot.

– For tonight’s lineup, look for Alex Turcotte to check back into the lineup for sure, with Taylor Ward a strong possibility as well.

Turcotte is in, as Interim Head Coach D.J. Smith confirmed yesterday, while Ward is coming off a smaller injury that has kept him out of the lineup for a few games while he’s been banged up. Nothing major, but he’s been working through something. Assuming he is good to go, he is expected to play, with the fourth line consisting of those two players along with Mathieu Joseph this evening.

That’s an identity change for that group. With Jeff Malott and Samuel Helenius likely out, if everything else aligns, that’s a lot of physicality coming out and a lot of speed coming in. The Kings need to play with a ton of energy and the three players on the fourth line are capable of bringing it.

Here’s Smith on what he’s looking for from that line –

“They’ve got to work, they’ve got to track and they’ve got to hold onto pucks in the o-zone,” Smith said of that line. “They’ve got to make it hard on the other team. They can all skate and they’re going to have to do that for us. We’re at that time of the year, with the importance of these games, that you’re going to have to take care of your own end but also if they can find a way to chip in, that would be great.”

Due to Ward’s injury, “the dogs” as Smith referred to them, haven’t played together now for a couple of weeks. That line, with Ward, Samuel Helenius and Jeff Malott provided a nice blend of physicality and forechecking when together, but it’s probably time for Turcotte to come back in here and if Ward is healthy enough to play, he should be in there as well. It’s a different look but hopefully this line is able to inject some energy tonight versus St. Louis.

– Lastly, just so everyone is on the same page, tonight’s game was originally slated to be broadcast nationally on TNT, but has since been shifted to a local broadcast on FanDuel Sports Network. The 6 PM start time is unusual for a Wednesday and was originally in place to accommodate TNT’s schedule, but with a fairly late change, tonight’s game will still begin at that time, only it will be broadcast locally on FDSN.

Games tonight and tomorrow will be on the regular broadcast channel – West – before Saturday’s game shifts back to FanDuel Sports Network So-Cal. Lots of twists and turns here……but want to make sure that everyone has the right information!

Kings and Blues. Nine games left in the 2025-26 regular season, as a season-defining homestand continues for Los Angeles.