Kings Kaliyev Finding a New Level Early This Season

Kaliyev's potential has never been in question, but his ability to keep up with the NHL's speed has been. Now, proving he can keep up, the future looks very bright for him.

Los Angeles Kings forward Arthur Kaliyev has been one of the most interesting prospects in the NHL over the last few seasons.

A player whose strengths are so strong, but whose weaknesses are so weak.

His shot is one of the best in all of hockey and has a high-end hockey IQ to complement his shot, but his skating and defensive awareness have held him back up to this point.

There were encouraging signs at the beginning of last season which suggested Kaliyev had turned a corner in fixing those issues, but a broken foot killed most of his momentum.

"After the injury, and it's not his fault, (Kaliyev) had a (foot) injury that really didn't allow him to train anything in the lower body," said Todd McLellan. "Then we asked him to come back and be fast and have a good engine and it didn't work that well."

It was Kaliyev's first major injury in his career and one that was difficult for him to recover from.

"It was awful because I couldn't do anything with my feet for months," said Kaliyev. "Obviously, coming back wasn't easy, the team was rolling and I wasn't playing as many minutes. So, it was hard to get back to game strength, I never really got back to my normal self."

But Kaliyev now has his game strength back and looks better physically than he ever has in the NHL.

He looks fast, at least for his standards, and looks to have improved his conditioning drastically. 

Maybe more than the physical improvements, Kaliyev also seems to be reading the game and playing at a higher pace mentally than he has in the past. 

On a line with Phil Danault and Trevor Moore, Kaliyev hasn't been chasing the play like he has in the past.

These improvements have even caught the eye of Danault.

"He's working harder, that's for sure, he's got a little better habits, he definitely brings more to the game than he has in the last few years, that's for sure," said Danault. "You could tell right away when he came to camp, his body, physically, big improvements. He's been good for our line."

Danault follows in the footsteps of McLellan, praising Kaliyev's physical improvements this summer. 

It was apparently an area Kaliyev was asked to work on this summer, and he did exactly that.

These improvements have clearly had an impact in-game too. It's still early, but the Kaliyev-Danault-Moore line looks excellent.

No Kings line has more than their five even-strength goals and they lead the team in Fenwick For, while also posting solid Corsi and expected goals numbers.

In short, they're outshooting, out-chancing and out-scoring the opposition right now.

Individually, Kaliyev has one goal and two assists through four games while posting a plus-two rating.

Kaliyev's potential has never been in question, but his ability to keep up with the NHL's speed has been. Now, proving he can keep up, the future looks very bright for him.

Assuming he can do it consistently, of course.

"We've always thought the ceiling would be, quite high with this individual," said McLellan when asked what Kaliyev's ceiling could be given his recent improvements. "He's proven in the past that he has a lethal shot, that he knows where to shoot it, all that type of stuff. He had to get used to better quality of opposition and do some training things. But we've always thought the ceiling was high for him. I don't want to box him into numbers, or lines, or minutes or stats, we would like to keep him where he is at right now with steady progression. Make sure the curve is going up and not down. I think if he just keeps doing what he's doing, he'll be fine."

If Kaliyev can sustain his current level of play, the Kings have a potential 30-goal scorer on their hands, and another high-end forward for their top nine.