WHO: Los Angeles Kings (2-5-2) @ New York Rangers (7-5-1)
WHAT: 2026-27 NHL Regular Season, Game 10/84
WHEN: Monday, October 26 @ 4:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Madison Square Garden – New York, NY
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: ABTV, DAZN – VIDEO: 830 AM KLAA, ESPN LA App, LA Kings App – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings

TODAY’S MATCHUP: The Kings begin their first back-to-back set of the season, as they visit the New York Rangers this evening for Monday Night Hockey.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Despite missing last season’s game, Kings forward Adrian Kempe is a point-per-game player in his career at Madison Square Garden, with seven points (3-4-7) in seven games played. Forward Artemi Panarin, who played for the Rangers from 2019-26, is the franchise’s all-time leader in points-per-game (1.26) and ranks inside the Top-10 in all-time assists and points.

KINGS VITALS: Following a full-team practice day yesterday in Newark, the Kings hit the ice for an optional morning skate today at MSG.

After Anton Forsberg got the start on Saturday, look for goaltender Darcy Kuemper to be back between the pipes tonight against the Rangers. Kuemper has a lifetime record of 11-4-0 against the Rangers, with a .909 save percentage and a 2.56 goals-against average.

Here’s a best projection of the Kings lineup tonight, based on a couple of updates below –

Panarin – Laferriere – Kempe
Moore – Byfield – Haula
Ward – Laughton – Armia
Lee – Helenius – Perry

Gustafsson – Clarke
Edmundson – Doughty
Anderson – Dumoulin

Kuemper
Forsberg

Forward Quinton Byfield has now been on the ice with the group on consecutive days, which is encouraging. The Kings are “hopeful” that he plays tonight in New York. If Byfield plays, I’d expect to see him on a line with Trevor Moore. I would’ve said Moore and Mats Zuccarello, but Zuccarello will not play tonight due to an upper-body injury. So, the above could be a bit shuffled, though the 18 skaters in are who I think will be in.

RANGERS VITALS: New York has been the NHL’s best team on home ice this season, with a record of 6-0-0 at Madison Square Garden entering tonight’s game against the Kings.

Per Peter Baugh of The Athletic, here’s how the Rangers lined up last time out versus the Ottawa Senators –

#NYR lines in Ottawa Perreault-Zibanejad-Lafrenière Kartye-Miller-Dorofeyev Cuylle-Laba-Tolvanen Bjorkstrand-Glendening-Raddysh Gavrikov-Fox Pettersson-Durzi Šmits-Schneider Garand

— Peter Baugh (@Peter_Baugh) October 24, 2026

New York signed goaltender James Reimer yesterday to partner with Dylan Garland, in response to what is expected to be a season-ending injury to starting goaltender Igor Shesterkin. Rangers defenseman Adam Fox leads NHL blueliners – while ranking second among all skaters – with 16 assists this season. Fox is one of five defensemen around the league currently scoring at a point-per-game clip, as he leads his team in points in the early goings.

Storyline Of The Day – Power Play Changes Coming
During yesterday’s practice, the Kings had a different look on their top power-play unit.

Defenseman Erik Gustafsson was running the point with the top group, alongside forwards Adrian Kempe, Artemi Panarin, Alex Laferriere and Quinton Byfield. That left a second unit that had a couple of variations, but included Brandt Clarke up top with Erik Haula, Mats Zuccarello and Corey Perry, along with what looked like a split of reps between defenseman Drew Doughty and forward Trevor Moore. Not positive on that second group, especially now that Zuccarello will not play tonight, so it could be the two defensemen with Haula, Moore and Perry.

Peter Laviolette said yesterday that the changes were designed to see if changing the handedness of the defenseman up top has any impact. The power play isn’t generating much right now and minus Gustafsson’s end-to-end effort in Washington, the production has dried up in those situations. So, when that happens, I think changes are inevitable.

“It’s just giving it a different look, give it a lefty up top and see if that does anything,” Laviolette said. “It’s just again, it’s the same thing. It’s got to generate more.”

The Kings have scored just one power-play goal over the last five games and that was a goal off the rush, not via an in-zone setup. The rush goal was one of the most important Kings goals of the season, Gustafsson’s game-winner in Washington, but those are not reliable forms of power-play scoring. Nor are they really an indicator that a power play is ticking positively.

The changes we saw yesterday could carryover, though a lot of that depends on the status of Byfield.

If he plays, there’s a reason he took some of the reps with that top unit. He will likely be there. The Gustafsson option at the point feels pretty likely, especially with Laviolette’s acknowledgement, regardless of the forwards around him.

“Hell of a group of players out there, I’m just trying to do my job, give them puck as fast as I can and try to shoot a little bit more,” Gustafsson said this morning. “I think we’ve done a little bit of moving the puck too much, you’ve got to take some shots too. It felt good. It was just practice, but hopefully can get one tonight.

Gustafsson, who has played on the power play for a long time in this league, believes that the first step is probably to simplify things.

As he said above, moving the puck is fine but if it doesn’t lead to shots on net, you’ll never score. Very, very rarely in the NHL can you pass the puck into the net. With a left shot up top, it creates an additional one-timer opportunity when Panarin is running the power play from the left side, as well as an easier setup pass for the one-timer for Kempe or Byfield in the right-hand circle. Gustafsson is a willing shooter in his own right and is able to get his shot through from up high.

“It’s a good group of forwards out there, but you’ve just got to move around and take the chance when you get it,” he added. “PK’s right now are just so good, to cover slot shots and stuff like that, so whenever you have the chance to get a puck to the net, everything else will open up. From there, you can get some momentum too. I think we just need to feel good about it, feel proud to be out there, move the puck and, like I said, shoot a little bit more. Then, more stuff will open up.”

Special teams entered the season as a huge point of emphasis and we haven’t seen the impact early. For a team struggling to score goals 5-on-5, special teams is one place to help overcome that, but the Kings enter tonight’s game 27th in the NHL at just shy of 15 percent, slightly below last season’s clip.

When a power play is clicking, it improves the rest of the game as well. When it’s not, it can drain on the even-strength moments. Right now, I think it’s a see-saw effect, with one draining the other. Neither has been productive, so it’s hard to say that one is impacting the other. The flip side certainly can be true, if everything is humming, everything prospers. That’s the goal, even if it’s not happening right now.”

“Power plays can give confidence to a team, it can give good energy on the bench,” Laviolette added. “If it’s successful, it can give confidence to the players who are on the power play, touching the puck and making the plays……point getters, they want goals and they want assists. They want to feel like they’re contributing to the team. That gives them confidence. So, with that, if it’s not producing, that can affect the 5-on-5 part of the game as well.”

More offense is the ambition. Power play needs to be a big part in that.

3 To Watch For –
– On the personnel front, here’s what we’ve got.

How the lines shake out, exactly, remains to be seen. It starts with Quinton Byfield’s availability. The Kings are “hopeful” that Byfield will play tonight, per Peter Laviolette. Byfield took the morning skate and was still on the ice when Laviolette spoke, so he hadn’t yet checked in on things after today’s skate. However, it seems he is preparing to play and that the team is preparing to have him in the lineup, but “nothing finalized” as of now.

With Mats Zuccarello, it’s an upper-body injury. He’s already missed time twice this season and this marks time number three. Zuccarello was out for stretches during training camp, as well as three games earlier in the regular season. Now, he’s out again. No way around that, it’s disappointing. Getting Byfield back helps to mitigate things a bit but when you’re trying to score more goals, the inability to get players in the lineup together, at the same time, certainly isn’t helping things. If Byfield can’t go, it gets really thin.

Laviolette was asked this morning if there is one area of the offensive side of the game that he feels is lacking more than the others. He said it’s “gone different from game-to-game” so it’s just rush chances or cycle chances or deflections or any one area. It’s changing. Everyone has seen the second-period stretches and those need to be addressed. I think it’s everywhere, but a bit reason why has been the lack of availability and it’s been difficult to find that second scoring line. Having one in, one out certainly doesn’t help as the Kings continue to search for more.

– With Zuccarello out, look for forward Taylor Ward to get a chance tonight.

“He’s been a scorer in the minors, he’s come up and he’s contributed at the NHL level,” Peter Laviolette said of Ward. “It’s an opportunity for him to jump into the lineup. We’re looking to find ways to produce offense and he gives us a chance for that.”

For Ward, he’s been around for a few different recalls now. He understands that he’s here for a reason, he’s in the lineup for a reason and he has to do certain things to enhance his linemates, not just keep up.

“It’s sort of an easy way to go, to defer once you come up here and you don’t want to take charge of your own game, but I don’t think that’s the best mindset for myself,” Ward said. “I’m going to go in there, do what I can and be the best I can be tonight. Hopefully that works out in two points for us.”

When a player enters the lineup, there is always a balance between wanting to make an impact and doing to much as you try to make an impact.

For Ward, I don’t think that’s really a concern. He plays the way he plays and doesn’t usually deviate from that.

“I think what works best for me is just when I do my best to try to help the team win, I think that’s when I’m playing my best,” Ward said. “I don’t even really think about what I’m trying to do individually. For myself, just do what I can to help the team win and that’ll be good enough for me.”

– The biggest reason why the Kings are 2-1-0 on this trip is their goaltending. It’s been a real bright spot.

In total, Darcy Kuemper and Anton Forsberg have combined for a .940 save percentage over the first three games, allowing just two goals in each contest. Over the three games, the two netminders have combined for nearly five goals saved above average, per Natural Stat Trick. They’ve allowed just six total goals and are a combined 22-for-22 on high-danger chances against, at all strengths.

Relying on goaltending to be at that level every single night is unsustainable. Getting it right now, though, has been very encouraging. Kuemper looks like he did during the 2024-25 season, when he finished third in the Vezina voting. I thought he has been excellent in both of his starts on this trip and he collected two well-deserved wins. Forsberg played his best game of the season against New Jersey on Saturday.

Against a team that has yet to lose a single game at home, it’ll have to be good again.

Only Colorado has scored more goals at home this season than New York, which has 29 in six games played at Madison Square Garden. Per Natural Stat Trick, the Rangers rank seventh in scoring chances and eighth in high-danger chances at home this season, on a per/60 basis. So, it could be another night in which the Kings need Kuemper, even if they resolve the long stretches that hurt them against the Islanders and Devils. More on the second periods to come tomorrow, but they’ve been problematic.

Kings and Rangers, before the trip shifts to Central Time for the finale tomorrow evening against the Blackhawks. A challenging test awaits, against a team off to a strong start to the season in New York.