LOS ANGELES — Months of pushing through the drudgery of recovery and rehabilitation got Drew Doughty into a Team Canada sweater, even though chances seemed to be between slim and none when he broke his ankle just minutes into his first preseason game in September.
Playing in the 4 Nations Face-Off — as well as returning to the Los Angeles Kings’ lineup — was the carrot that drove Doughty through a 47-game absence. And as he made it back to the Kings on Jan. 29, the 35-year-old blue-line bedrock lobbied hard for a spot on Canada’s roster that opened when Vegas’ Alex Pietrangelo opted to withdraw and rest his ailing body.
Canada coach Jon Cooper examined Doughty as an injury replacement over able-bodied younger stalwarts such as MacKenzie Weegar and Evan Bouchard. Could Doughty still play at the level needed in the first best-on-best international tournament in eight years? Would he hurt Canada’s efforts while playing catch-up to others after missing so much game action?
As is his nature, Doughty took in the questions and was bent on shoving them back on those who question him and his game. Forcefully.
“It’s been bugging me,” Doughty told The Athletic on Saturday night after the Kings’ 5-3 win over the Utah Hockey Club. “I wanted to show the world that I still got it. Still can play. Think I did that. I even had L.A. media – how can I say this right? – doubting me. And it’s wild to me that they can doubt me at this point.
“I just wanted to prove everybody wrong and show them what I can still do. I mean, people got to realize I was out for freaking probably eight months. That’s a long time. And it’s hard to get it back. Hopefully, I get there.”
That is Drew Doughty, folks. Maybe he’s not Jordan-esque when it comes to being fueled by slights real or invented, but the Kings’ star loves it when you doubt him. Such as when it was loudly suggested that he was washed as an elite defenseman during L.A.’s rebuilding period, even after a Norris Trophy, two Stanley Cup championships and two Olympic gold medals. Such as when questions of his viability for Canada’s championship efforts resurfaced after a shaky opening 4 Nations performance against Sweden.
Saturday’s game against Utah had Doughty riding on a high just two nights after Connor McDavid’s overtime goal made Doughty a winner again in a major competition. And while facing Utah didn’t carry nearly the magnitude of taking on the United States in an emotionally, if not politically charged atmosphere, Doughty showed why he can still be a force for the Kings after the thousands of miles he’s skated.
Doughty’s hands were all over their first game after a two-week NHL break. His sizzling slapshot got the Kings on the scoreboard, his first goal since Game 3 of last spring’s playoff series against Edmonton. He calmly Anze Kopitar across the ice on the power play, a successful one when the red-hot Kevin Fiala ripped a one-timer off a soft Kopitar feed. And Doughty’s best play of the night bumped the Kings into the lead for good, a chip from deep in his own zone to Alex Laferriere, who chased it down into the Utah end and put a neat backhand shot past goalie Connor Ingram.
“I was gassed,” Doughty said. “That was full just flip the puck out. Honestly, I did not see Laff at all. That was a lucky apple. Take it. It looked great.”
It might have felt like desperation, but it looked pretty calculated to Laferriere.
“It’s hard to kind of think that Dewey doesn’t see someone,” Laferriere said. “I think he just sees the ice so well, so it’s kind of hard to believe that. But, yeah, I knew he was gassed so I kind of cheated the play a little bit. He’s just an unbelievable player so he’s going to find you no matter what.”
A three-point night, just like that — his first in nearly a full calendar year. He was the game’s first star in his seventh game of his 17th season.
Kings coach Jim Hiller said it was “clearly the best” that Doughty has played with the Kings since returning. Hiller thought the defenseman resembled his longtime form, even though Hiller was playing him a ton, partly due to Mikey Anderson missing four games before the break with a finger injury. “Yeah, I thought Drew was really good,” the coach said. “As good as I can even remember, going back to last year. That would have probably been one of his top 10 games.”
Doughty played 21 minutes, 40 seconds, the least of his seven games this season and less than Vladislav Gavrikov and Joel Edmundson. And that may indicate how the Kings would like to spread the minutes among their top two pairings for the stretch run. Assistant coach D.J. Smith, who runs the defense, put Gavrikov and Anderson back together, as they had been all year, and paired Doughty with Edmundson. There might be nights when Doughty’s ice time reaches 25 minutes or more. But it may not be every night, as before.
“There’ll be times that he gets that,” Hiller said. “We ran him pretty hard before, but Mikey was out. Mikey and Gavy have been playing 25, 27 (on) different nights. I think you’ll just see Smitty spread those a little bit more between them. But I don’t think you’ll see one guy at 28 and the other guys at 18, 19, 20. I think they’ll probably be a little bit more balanced than we’ve seen in past years.”
Hiller added, “Drew will get his minutes. He has important minutes. The four of them like that gives us a really, really strong foundation back there. We’ll see where it goes, but we kind of like the four of them as they’re distributed now.”
The 4 Nations tournament didn’t just give Doughty the chance to uphold his stature in the game. Playing against teams from the U.S., Sweden and Finland, filled with many of the NHL’s best players, pushed him to bring his game up to their level after so much time away.
“It helped me a ton,” Doughty said. “I was forced instantly to get up to speed. That was a faster game. Didn’t love my first game against Sweden, but after that I got locked in and played three good games to finish it. Yeah, that was super key to be able to play in that. I did not need another 10 days off.”
Doughty’s season debut was a Kings’ 3-0 loss to Florida. He didn’t like his performance. It got better each time out, but he still didn’t feel like he was meeting his own high standard. The 4 Nations, and how Cooper increased his role over the four games, was restorative.
“Confidence boost,” he said. “Just getting that winning feeling back in my body. That gave me an absolute boost. Not that I ever lost my competitiveness or anything like that, but feeling that feeling again just wants to make you want to instantly feel it more and more and more. So now my objective is just to take this Kings team all the way.”
That’s also Drew Doughty, folks. Talks as big of a game as he plays.
“I watched every single (4 Nations) game,” said Laferriere, a New Jersey native. “It was super fun to watch him. Yeah, it kind of sucked that he beat the U.S. I was so happy for him, though. It’s huge for a guy like that who’s just a winner. Kind of gets back to his winning ways. I shot him a text and he said that I was a decent American, so I guess I’ll take it.”
The Kings’ back end will look a little different for now with Doughty next to Edmundson instead of Anderson, his regular partner for the past few years. While that may be a recognition of how well Anderson and Gavrikov played together when Doughty was sidelined, Hiller reminded all that nothing is permanent when it comes to his lines and pairings. But Doughty looked forward to building more chemistry with Edmundson.
“We were great (on Saturday),” he said. “I really like it. Eddy’s steady back there. Talks a lot. I went up to him after the handshake line thing we do and just said, ‘I love playing with you.’ Hopefully that partnership continues, and we grow and get better and better.”
The Kings, with a 30-17-7 record but still potentially destined to finish third in the Pacific Division, could still use another notable piece to match up better against Edmonton or Vegas in the first round, which they haven’t been able to get past in three tries. But they’ve got a whale of an addition in Doughty, and the 4 Nations win has him recharged and left him ready to put his thumbprints on a long overdue playoff run.
“I look at it like this,” Hiller said. “It was really good for Drew. I think it certainly looked like it really worked out well for Team Canada. But I think in the end, we’re probably the biggest benefactors just getting him back in the rhythm that he is in.
“He’s a really important player for the organization and we know that. It felt good. We were all commenting like, ‘Wow, OK, we forgot we’ve missed that kind of game from Drew.’”
(Photo of Drew Doughty: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
