Quinton Byfield was on the ice with the Kings on consecutive days before they met the New York Rangers on Monday Night Hockey, and the club was hopeful he would be in the lineup for October 26. That made him the most watched name in a game Los Angeles entered as the first stop in its first back-to-back set of the season.
The timing matters because the Kings are not just trying to survive a difficult road night. They were also looking at lineup decisions with Darcy Kuemper expected to start after Anton Forsberg went on Saturday, while New York brought a 6-0-0 home record at Madison Square Garden into the matchup. The Rangers were also dealing with their own changes in goal after signing James Reimer to partner with Dylan Garland following what was expected to be a season-ending injury to Igor Shesterkin.
Practice offered the clearest sign of what Los Angeles was considering. Erik Gustafsson ran the point with the top power-play unit, alongside Adrian Kempe, Artemi Panarin, Alex Laferriere and Byfield, while Brandt Clarke worked with a second group that also included Erik Haula, Mats Zuccarello and Corey Perry in one variation. Peter Laviolette said the point of the switch was to see whether changing the handedness of the defenseman up top could change the way the power play functions, after saying the unit was not generating much right now.
That is where the neatest wrinkle sits. Byfield was trending toward a return, but Mats Zuccarello was already out with an upper-body injury, leaving one key piece available and another unavailable as the Kings tried to settle a lineup and a power play at the same time. The setup also pointed to why the change was being tested now: the Kings needed answers on the second night of a road back-to-back, and they needed them against a team that had defended its home ice well enough to make every adjustment count.
Darcy Kuemper carried his own history into the game, with an 11-4-0 lifetime record against the Rangers, a.909 save percentage and a 2.56 goals-against average. If Byfield dressed, the Kings would at least have a fuller picture of their forward group; if he did not, the lineup questions would only deepen as the night moved from a practice look to the real thing.
