Two must be the magic number of the day.
Saturday afternoon marked the second preseason game for nearly all of the Kings “regular” players. It also was the second Kings-Ducks game of the week, a rematch of their Wednesday night contest down in Anaheim.
After dropping their first two games of the preseason, today’s matinee affair provided coach Peter Laviolette and crew with the second win of the exhibition season, a decisive 6-2 romp over Anaheim at Crypto.com Arena.
Then, there’s Alex Turcotte’s two-goal performance:
— LA Royalty (@LARoyalty1967) September 26, 2026
— LA Royalty (@LARoyalty1967) September 26, 2026
Which begs the question — after a summer of wondering who slots in at 2C behind Quinton Byfield’s line up top — has Turcotte has elevated to that role?
“He’s worked really hard in camp to show what he could do; he’s always been a highly skilled player,” Laviolette said in his postgame media availability. “Basically, it’s training camp. It’s an opportunity for people to show what they can do.”
Putting Turcotte between Mats Zuccarello and Alex Laferriere also provided the veteran coach a deeper setup, as well as additional options for offense.
“I think there’s other things that I like about the lineup too [when combined with Turcotte at 2C],” Laviolette continued. “It allows me to layer something into a third line that can be used in a different way. But [Turcotte] is a player who’s produced his whole life, and it was an opportunity for him, and today was a good day for him.”
While that may sound like a little bit of hedging about the 2C, it makes sense. The team was only able to play veteran players two times in preseason. Thus, it’s not like Laviolette and the coaching staff have had a long runway to reach a decision. If one of the ideas in hiring an outside coaching staff was to allow everybody a fresh start, mission accomplished. The past is the past. Therefore, it may take some time — e.g. 10-20 games, perhaps — to sort everything out.
“It’s been so broken up in the first three games, it’s hard to know exactly what you have,” admitted Laviolette. “I think that we’re still evaluating everything. If you think about [things], this is the first game that we’ve really been together. We have not been together; there were a few players in game one, there were half the guys in game two, and I couldn’t use the players in the first game and games two or three. I had to wait to the fourth game, so it’s been so broken up.”
Putting all of that aside, is Turcotte the 2C at least for now?
“I think there’s going to be a feeling out process,” Laviolette continued. “But I think when you stack games on top of each other, that’s when you can really make an impression into a lineup. And so today was a really good day for him and his line.”
Then, LA’s bench boss circled back to a key point whenever talk comes up regarding a single player’s position in the lineup.
“I thought Mats [Zuccarello] being there helped,” Laviolette remarked. “Mats got going a little bit. He hadn’t had much competition because he’d been out with the red jersey and not much of that one-on-one combativeness that’s been going on [throughout] training camp. So, for that line to get together, I think it took a little bit to get past that first period. Then, in the second I thought they were better, and in the third I thought that they were really good. Good game by the line. Good game by Alex, that’s a good start.”
Lead photo by Megan Sanders
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