The Los Angeles Kings will face the New Jersey Devils in the first of two meetings during the 2024-25 NHL regular season. The second meeting is just a few weeks away, on January 1st, 2025, at Crypto.com Arena.
Kings head into this contest looking for their seventh consecutive win on the season. Oddly enough, it will have been the seventh time LA has recorded a seven-game winning streak in their franchise's history.
The Devils' longest winning streak was thirteen games, a feat they accomplished twice (2000-01, 2022-23). This season, their longest winning streak has been three games, which they, again, did twice, both times in November.
The longest winning streak in NHL history belongs to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who recorded seventeen wins in a row in the 1992-93 regular season. The streak ended just prior to that year's playoffs, when the Penguins would set yet another NHL record for consecutive post-season wins at fourteen (ended by the Devils)—a record that began in the 1992 playoffs.
ASSISTANT CAPTAIN
According to the NHL rulebook, an Alternate Captain (also referred to as an Assistant Captain) is defined as such:
"6.2 Alternate Captains – If the permanent Captain is not on the ice, Alternate Captains (not more than two) shall be accorded the privileges of the Captain."
Kings Captain Anze Kopitar has not only been on the ice but has been an assist machine. He leads the team by a large margin with twenty-four apples, ten ahead of the next player (Adrian Kempe). Kopitar has registered eight assists in his last eight games and has strung together four assists over the last four games.
He'll look to continue his point streak versus a Devils team that has averaged 4.48 assists against per game.
FIRST UNIT
The New Jersey Devils may not have the highest goals per game in the league (they are only fifth in regard), but they have the best power play success rate, at 31.25%.
Of the Devils' one hundred three goals scored, this season, thirty have come on the power play, the majority from their first unit (Noesen, Hischier, Bratt, Hughes, Hamilton) who have combined for twenty-three. They've done just as well five-on-five with 47.14% of the team's even strength goals - so expect the Kings to key on those five players for the full sixty minutes.
LA have averaged 2.6 penalties per game in their last five contests. New Jersey's strong power play numbers suggest that, if the Kings do take two-or-more penalties, the Devils will likely score on at least one of them.
UNITY FIRST
Kings Head Coach Jim Hiller hasn't been shy about adjusting his lineup game-to-game or even in-game. Part of that stems from the initial feeling out process of the regular season which could take fifteen, twenty, twenty-five games before guys start settling in. Nearing the thirty game mark, it's fair to say the team is coming into their own.
After the Kings defeated the Minnesota Wild, 5-1, on November 5th, 2024, the team introduced a post-game celebratory gesture to honor the team's Driver of the Game.
This was not only the first time the award had been handed out, but also the first time the public had gotten to see just how close this team was becoming.
When the Kings defeated the Seattle Kraken on November 23rd, 2024, Jacob Moverare presented Quinton Byfield with a new, Lando Norris edition, Formula One helmet (gifted to Kopitar by McLaren Racing's Zakary Brown).
The mini replica helmet was fun... comical... lighthearted.
Now that they have upgraded to the real deal, the laughs have been replaced with energy, intensity, and - most importantly - unity.
For a team in search of its identity, I can't think of a more emblematic item than a racing helmet to take things from zero to one hundred.
Puck drop is slated for 4:05 PM PST. You can watch the game on television via FanDuel Sports Network or listen live with the ESPN LA app.
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