Credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn ImagesSAN DIEGO, CA — 2014 was quite some time ago. 2016 is now more than a decade ago. Faces have come and gone, including the hands at the helm: Dean Lombardi, Rob Blake, and now Ken Holland. Just like the three general manager changes over that time, the Los Angeles Kings announced their 15th captain in their history, none other than Drew Doughty.
While some were surprised about the captaincy since he is unsigned after this season, there is another aspect that hallows out the memory bank. He is the only man left.
Anze Kopitar spent twenty seasons building the identity of this organization. Two Stanley Cups, two Selke Trophies, three Lady Byng awards, 1,454 games, and racking up 1,097 points. When he retired this summer, the Kings did not just lose a player; they lost their captain. The vacancy was a quiet issue that lingered throughout the offseason. It seemed moot given that they lost the person who had defined what it meant to be a King for the better part of two decades. The captaincy was always going to go to Doughty after that, and Doughty made clear in his exit interview exactly where he stood on the matter. "I would love to be captain of this team," he said. "When I was younger, it was something I never thought of, and I kind of grew into a leadership role, and now it's something I cherish. It would mean the world to me to be captain."
Now it is.
See, what makes this announcement more than a formality is what it represents for the organization. Doughty is not simply the most senior player in the building. He is the last man standing from the championship era, the only current King to have been there for both the 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup triumphs. Every other player from that window has either retired, been traded, or moved on. Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar, Jonathan Quick — the list goes on. All gone. Doughty is what remains, and he remains at an age when most players from his draft class are already two or three years into their post-playing careers.
He is entering his 19th NHL season and will turn 37 in December. He has played 1,279 regular-season games for this franchise, all of them in silver and black, and he is 17 games from tying Dustin Brown for second on the Kings' all-time games-played list by a defenseman. The resume is as good as any active player: second overall pick in 2008, two-time Stanley Cup champion, Norris Trophy winner in 2016, franchise leader in games played and points among defensemen, multiple Olympic medals, and now the letter on his chest. Doughty has logged a gargantuan 33,234.52 minutes in a Kings uniform. That works out to about 553 hours, 54 minutes, and 31 seconds of ice time across 1,279 regular-season games, or roughly 25:59 per game. That’s just a week shy of playing hockey for the Kings 24 hours straight for a month.
Combining the time spent and childhood admiration, he described the captaincy at his introductory press conference as "one of the biggest accomplishments" of his career. From a man who has won just about everything this sport offers, that is worth pausing on.
His leadership style is worth noting because it will define the tone of this team's next chapter. Doughty was explicit about the difference between himself and Kopitar. "Kopi is more of a quiet, showing the teammates what to do leader," he said. "I'm more of a loud, emotional leader. I do those things as well, but we're different in that sense, and that's why me and Kopi kind of led together well, because I was a loud guy and he was the 'I show what we should do' guy." For a team making a significant transition under a new coach in Peter Laviolette, loud and emotional is not the worst thing in the world. Brandt Clarke and Quinton Byfield are ascending. Doughty brings the weight of institutional memory and a voice that will fill whatever room he walks into.
The contract question is where this story gets complicated, and it is the other major subplot running through the organization's entire 2026-27 season.
Doughty's current deal is the final year of the eight-year, $88 million contract he signed in 2018. The $11 million cap hit he carries this season makes him the joint-highest-paid player on the roster alongside Artemi Panarin. At this summer's draft, Ken Holland confirmed what had been rumored: no extension was being signed before the season started. "We did meet with Drew over the past few weeks," Holland said. "We've agreed that we're not going to sign him to an extension. He loves it here. He wants to be here. I told him, and we both agreed, let's see where he's at, let's see where the team is at a year from now." Holland's tone at training camp was warmer: "Drew has no desire to go anywhere. You just see his passion for the LA Kings."
Doughty's desire to retire as a King is not in question. He has said it publicly and repeatedly. The question is the structure of the next deal, and that is where the situation gets delicate. He posted five goals and 18 assists for 23 points over 72 games in 2025-26, with his ice time dropping to 23:05 per game, the lowest average of his career. He remains a quality second-pair defenseman with a Norris-caliber pedigree and real two-way value. But he is not an $11 million player anymore, and most reports suggest that the next deal, when it comes, will reflect that reality, with a one- or two-year term at a significantly reduced AAV.
Credit: Matt Blewett-USA TODAY SportsI circle back to comps, and there's really only one player that comes immediately to mind given the full context of captaincy, age, and role. The player comparison that keeps coming up in analytical circles is Jared Spurgeon, and it is a reasonable one to examine. Spurgeon has captained the Minnesota Wild through their most sustained stretch of regular-season competitiveness, served as an organizational pillar at an age when most franchise cornerstone defensemen had either declined sharply or walked away, and managed to remain a quality contributor in a reduced role deep into his mid-to-late thirties.
Figure 1: Doughty leads Spurgeon in five of six relative impact metrics in 2025-26, and the margins are not small. His +5.79 shot-attempt suppression relative impact is the most dramatic data point on the chart. The one metric where Spurgeon holds the edge in high-danger suppression at +1.49 against Doughty's +1.40, though it is the slimmest gap of the six. The territorial argument and the defensive suppression argument both point in the same direction. Doughty, in his new role as captain, is still doing real two-way work.Not the true number one anymore, with higher-skilled defensemen on the roster? What the comp captures is the specific archetype: a defenseman whose elite period is clearly behind him but whose defensive positioning, experience, and competitive motor keep him meaningfully above replacement level even as the counting stats dry up. Spurgeon's recent seasons were not spectacular. They were functional, reliable, and defensively sound in ways the box score does not fully capture. That is exactly the conversation being had about Doughty's current and near-future value to this team
Figure 2: Both players posted identical points-per-60 in 2025-26. That is where the similarity ends. Spurgeon generated individual scoring chances at 2.37 per 60 against Doughty's 1.48, and high-danger chances at 0.68 against 0.27. Doughty's offensive contribution runs through positioning and distribution. Spurgeon's ran through volume. 
Figure 3: Doughty's 2025-26 relative xG surge is real, but it sits against a three-season backdrop that spent more time below zero than above it. Spurgeon's track record, even accounting for the 2023-24 small sample, was the stronger multi-year baseline. One season of resurgence is a signal. It is not yet a pattern.The cautionary element of the Spurgeon comp is also real. Spurgeon has had health issues, a reminder that aging is not linear and that a player's relationship with their body at 36 or 37 is a different negotiation than it was at 32. Doughty has dealt with two significant injuries over the past five seasons. His durability heading into 2026-27, now in his nineteenth year, is the variable the Kings cannot fully price in.
What can be said with some confidence is this: the Kings need Doughty to have a strong 2026-27 season in order for the postseason extension conversation to go the way both sides want it to. If the captaincy reinvigorates him, and the historical record of players stepping into a leadership role they have openly coveted suggests it might, the organizational math works. A resurgent Doughty at full health, with Brandt Clarke's ascension to top minutes under Laviolette, might just signal that the franchise knows it’s heading. A diminished Doughty playing through whatever his body brings him on a night-to-night basis is a different calculation.
The Kings named him captain because the decision was obvious despite some underlying, and considerably alarming, franchise trends. He is the last man standing from the era that defined this team. He has played every game of his professional career in the same uniform while logging heavy minutes.
The jury is still completely out on whether he goes out a cup winner again, something he’s chased since 2014; the likelihood of that remains extremely low.
