WHO: Los Angeles Kings (0-1-1) vs. Florida Panthers (1-0-2)
WHAT: 2026-27 NHL Regular Season, Game 3/84
WHEN: Tuesday, October 6 @ 7:00 PM Pacific
WHERE: Crypto.com Arena – Los Angeles, CA
HOW TO FOLLOW: VIDEO: ESPN – AUDIO: ESPN LA 710, ESPN LA App, 830 AM KLAA – TWITTER: @dooleylak & @lakings
TODAY’S MATCHUP: The LA Kings are on home ice for the first time this season, as they host the Florida Panthers at Crypto.com Arena for their 2026-27 home opener.
HEAD-TO-HEAD: The Kings dropped both games played against the Panthers a season ago, which snapped a five-game winning streak against Florida on home ice. Forwards Corey Perry and Joel Armia each scored a goal against Florida last season, with Perry’s coming at Crypto.com Arena.
KINGS VITALS: The Kings utilized the 11/7 alignment in Saturday’s overtime defeat against San Jose and plan to return to that again here tonight.
Goaltender Darcy Kuemper appears to be in line for his second start of the season tonight, after he surrendered eight goals in the season opener in Colorado. Kuemper has a 4-7-1 record lifetime against the Panthers but does carry solid splits, with a .917 save percentage and a 2.70 goals-against average.
Based on yesterday’s practice and today’s morning skate, here is tonight’s projected Kings lineup –
Panarin – Byfield – Kempe
Zuccarello – Turcotte – Laferriere
Moore – Haula – Armia
Laughton – Perry
Dumoulin – Doughty
Gustafsson – Clarke
Anderson – Ceci
Edmundson
Kuemper
Forsberg
Was expecting to see the same lineup, after a well-played game in San Jose, but then Mats Zuccarello missed yesterday’s practice due to a maintenance day. However, Zuccarello did skate this morning, which points towards his ability to go tonight against the Panthers. So, much adieu about nothing, with the same group of 18 skaters expected in tonight’s game.
PANTHERS VITALS: Florida has gone to overtime in all three of its games played this season, winning once and losing twice in the early stages.
Per Jameson Olive of FloridaPanthers.com, here’s how the visitors lined up against Anaheim on Sunday –
#FlaPanthers lines vs. #Ducks ⬇️ Verhaeghe – Bennett – M. Tkachuk Luostarinen – Lundell – Vilmanis B. Tkachuk – Reinhart – Marchand Imama – Eller – Hathaway Forsling – Kulikov Mikkola – Jones Balinskis – Gudas Markstrom Schmid
— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) October 4, 2026
The Panthers are expected to be without captain Aleksander Barkov, who was placed on LTIR due to a lower-body injury sustained in San Jose last week. In his absence, Sam Reinhart played center, on a line with Brady Tkachuk and Brad Marchand, who returned to action against the Ducks. The Panthers were also without defenseman Aaron Ekblad against the Ducks but he is expected to be available tonight in Los Angeles.
Storyline Of The Day – 11 / 7
I thought the 11/7 showed pretty well of itself on Saturday.
Up front, the benefits are always that you can utilize your extra icetime for some of your top-end forwards, while changing the approach of your fourth line a bit. It’s something that a lot of contending teams have found success with, getting top-line players extra minutes, usually against bottom-six lines, which can help to generate mismatches.
Against San Jose, the two-man fourth line of Scott Laughton and Corey Perry saw the most time with Adrian Kempe, with Alex Laferriere not far behind. Trevor Moore, Quinton Byfield and Mats Zuccarello each had multiple shifts there as well. Laughton and Perry aren’t your typical fourth-line players. Laughton has typically played a line higher in his time with the Kings and Perry is obviously a career top-six forward, at the end of his career. Laughton nearly won the game late but hit the post inside the final minute of regulation and, outside of the first line, those two were the most productive line in terms of chance generation.
With those two on the ice, the underlying numbers were quite good, which showed the versatility they bring with different players mixing and matching in.
“I thought it was really good, 11 and 7 is not a bad combination because you can take a lot of players and plug them into a hole,” Laviolette said. “You’re talking about Scott Laughton and Corey Perry, pretty good players, that go down there and play and then you add a winger down there and it can become a line that can produce. They did have some chances, for both Laughton and Perry, and the player, whoever it was, that went on that line.”
On the blueline is typically where the logjam ensues.
In the past, often times, the seventh defenseman was squeezed out. It was often Jacob Moverare or Kyle Burroughs and you’d see some very low TOI numbers. On Saturday, though, every defenseman played at least 13 minutes. With the addition of Erik Gustafsson, the Kings injected a very different skillset into the lineup, with Gustafsson’s puck movement and skating abilities a standout for the group.
Adding him in allows the Kings to deploy two puck-moving defensemen with offensive-zone starts, with Gustafsson alongside Brandt Clarke. It also allows to mix and match different situations throughout the game, including two defensively-minded players on some of the starts at the other end. The seven-defenseman look can be hard on the blueliners, who play less and find their partners regularly changing. For a coach, though, it allows you to use players to their strengths, while maybe taking players out of situations they aren’t as equipped for.
“The offensive part of having the seventh defenseman being Gustafsson, I thought was really good,” Laviolette added. “He had a lot of o-zone starts with Clarke and I thought they produced a lot of offense. They were they were on the ice for an awful lot of good things going down in their end.”
Is it a long-term fit, especially when Kevin Fiala comes back? Remains to be seen. I actually wonder if it could get even better in that world.
However, Laviolette said yesterday he likes what that look can do in certain situations, especially with the current personnel. I don’t think he’s the kind of coach who will persist with something just to do it. He’ll adjust as needed. For now, he likes how this sets up his personnel and I think we will see it until that no longer becomes the case.
Expecting to see the 11/7 alignment tonight, assuming health, and we’ll see from there.
3 To Watch For –
– A big reason for the success of the 11/7 alignment has been Gustafsson.
A summer signing for a modest cap hit, Gustafsson is a Laviolette kind of defenseman. He’s had a ton of success within that system in New York and Washington. One game in and he looks right at home in Los Angeles as well.
Gustafsson posted excellent splits in San Jose. He was on the ice for 28 shot attempts for compared to just six against in 5-on-5 situations. 16-4 in favor of the Kings in shots on goal, the best clip on the team.
“I think for myself, I just tried to make it simple as I can, first game in a while,” Gustafsson said. “I was just trying to move the puck up to the forwards, try to join the rush and stuff like that. I felt good out there. Obviously we’ll see what happens here, but I felt good.”
Gustafsson often gets labelled as an offensive defenseman and he does have that in his game, but a big part of what he brings too is the way he passes the puck out of his own zone. His exits were noticeable in San Jose, with an 80 percent success rate on exiting the zone with possession after a dump in by the Sharks. He can both pass and skate the puck out with control, which is an important part of creating the other way.
It’s also a version of defending without defending, if you will. If you can break the puck out cleanly, you defend less, which allows Gustafsson to play to his strengths with the puck.
“That’s one type of my game, I need to do it and I need to do it well, if I can succeed and try to help this team win,” Gustafsson added. “I felt good when I did it last game and it’s just you’ve got to try to keep doing it.”
A good debut for number 64. Interested to see how he continues to contribute as he gets more opportunities.
– With the goaltending, to date, the script has not changed for the Kings.
The plan coming into the season, with a spread out schedule, saw Darcy Kuemper and Anton Forsberg split the starts to begin the season, with Kuemper in Colorado and Forsberg in San Jose. The plan was to go back to Kuemper tonight as well and that is what is happening.
“This was exactly the plan, coming in, for right now,” Laviolette said. “I think when you get down the road, if you ask me the plan for November, I can’t give you that quite yet, but right now, this was the plan.”
Now. I think that performance made it easy to stick to that plan. Kuemper gave up eight goals in Colorado and Forsberg gave up five in San Jose. Neither put in a performance that separated from the other. If the Kings won 4-1 against the Sharks, with Forsberg a standout performer, I think the conversation becomes more difficult and maybe the plan changes. I think it’s level, though, because neither goaltender took the reigns. Until that happens, I imagine that it will be a split.
– Lastly, in advance of tonight’s game, the Kings will unveil a new display for the Los Angeles Kings Hall of Fame.
Will have a story on it later in the week, but the Kings HOF is something that has been around for some time, it’s just never really gotten a ton of attention, behind the retired numbers. It’s coming back though, as a part of the 60th anniversary of the franchise.
The display is going to look really cool from what I have seen and with the new spotlight will be a Hall of Fame committee, to help induct new members. Long overdue. Again, will share what that looks like over the next couple days. More HERE from the team’s press release yesterday.
For today, though, it’s time to turn Saturday’s performance into a result. The Kings are in search of their first win of the season tonight and they’ll have to do it against the 2024 and 2025 Stanley Cup Champions. 7 PM puck drop on ESPN, hope to see a few of you downtown!