The Los Angeles Kings are set to wrap up their preseason on Saturday in Quebec City against the Florida Panthers. Prior to leaving for Quebec City, the Kings significantly cut down their roster and headed east with only 26 players.
This means they have to cut only three more players ahead of the regular season next week. At this point, there isn't much uncertainty about what the majority of the roster will look like. However, the Kings will have to make some big decisions that will impact those final spots.
It starts with how many forwards and defensemen they want to keep as they could look to have 13 forwards with eight defensemen or 14 forwards with seven defensemen (and two goalies in either scenario).
The Kings likely will want to keep more defensemen due to the injury to Drew Doughty but let's run through some scenarios and which players could be motivated to have a big game in what will be their final chance to make their case to remain on the roster.