Los Angeles Kings hockey is officially back on Monday as they take on the Utah Hockey Club in Utah.
It will be a young roster, compromised mostly of AHL players and prospects with a few NHLers sprinkled in.
LAKingsInsider Zach Dooley had the projected group below.
There are a few names to watch in this group.
Alex Turcotte and Akil Thomas are the most likely NHLers amongst them and will be expected to be leaders for this team.
I'd expect them to get top line minutes and be leaned on heavily by Jim Hiller.
Liam Greentree is another one to watch up front as we get a look at how he performs against higher quality opposition.
Samuel Fagemo still appears to be on the outside looking in and needs a huge camp to challenge for a roster spot and a strong game Monday would go a long way in starting that process.
The last name of note up front is Trevor Lewis who gets a chance in front of his hometown crowd.
On the backend seeing the first look at the projected Joel Edmundson-Brandt Clarke will be interesting.
How Edmundson looks and how he complements Clarke's skill set will be interesting.
As always, seeing how Clarke handled the defensive side of things and physicality against NHL/AHL competition will be interesting.
I'd expect Clarke to play a lot of minutes and get a chance to shine.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this team is in net.
I'd expect Erik Portillo to start who's setting himself up for a big season in the AHL.
Utah hasn't announced their lineup yet but a chance to see Portillo take on a lot of NHL talent would be huge.
If Carter George gets game time it will be good to see how his skill set moves up a level too.
With a lot of NHL hopefuls there's potential for this game to be fairly physical even for a preseason game and should be a fun watch for fans.
Of course, the result doesn't matter but getting to see a few individual performance will be important.