The wait appears to be over as Drew Doughty is ready to make his season debut tonight for the Los Angeles Kings against the Florida Panthers. The Kings' star defenseman has yet to play in the regular season after suffering an ankle injury during a preseason game.
Doughty has played all 16 years of his NHL career with the Los Angeles Kings after they drafted him with the second overall pick in the 2008 NHL Draft. In total he has played in 1,177 regular season games and was a key part of both Stanley Cup teams in the 2011-12 and 2013-14 seasons.
How will the Los Angeles Kings adjust their lineup with Doughty returning?
While the Kings know Drew Doughty is returning tonight, there are plenty of questions left to be answered before he takes the ice against the Panthers. The first will be they need to activate him off injured reserve and will need to create a roster spot. For the Kings, the likely players to be waived would either be Andreas Englund or Kyle Burroughs.
Once that is done, Jim Hiller has to determine if he will continue with a roster split of 12 forwards and six defensemen, which he has used recently, or revert back to 11 forwards and seven defensemen, which he had used for a majority of the season.
The fact that the Kings are probably going to try and ease Doughty back, my guess is they go back to a 11 forwards/seven defensemen split.
Then the final question is who will Drew Doughty be paired with? He has played a lot with Mikey Anderson over his career but Anderson has played well next to Vladislav Gavrikov. According to Zach Dooley, the Kings may give that pair a little more run as Doughty is expected to play next to Jacob Moverare as well as return to the first power play unit.
The Los Angeles Kings have struggle recently and getting a player like Drew Doughty is an immediate boost for this team. Hopefully that will result in more wins as they finish out this road trip.