SAN DIEGO, CA — For any article about Los Angeles Kings defenseman Drew Doughty, superlatives like future Hall of Famer, Stanley Cup champion, multiple gold-medal Canadian Olympian, and Norris Trophy winner should really go without saying. He’s been the number one on the blueline for well over a decade in Los Angeles and the last standing member of their former glory (12’, 14’). But for those tuning into the 2026-2027 season, it will be the changing of the guard for this blueline.

See, the grizzled veteran has logged 1,279 games and 84 playoff games. He spent over a half-decade being the league’s top minute muncher, expedited by a Slava Voynov incident that led to an exit from championship contention. His speed has taken a hit, and that same offensive flair has died down (he has not posted a regular-season PPG since the 2023-24 season). Doughty has compiled a lengthy and impressive resume but is starting to see diminishing returns as the player falls into the second-pair category.

Prolonging this inevitable departure from greatness was the team’s overall structure: a haven for defensemen who are restricted in their ability to jump into the play or defend one-on-one in more open ice. This has always been a prime ability of Doughty but is more isolated and catered to his baseline abilities with respect to the system he has played in. This has certainly added to his longevity as a top-pairing defenseman, though things have changed over the last few seasons. 

Though age shows mercy to no one, Doughty has still shown flashes of high-end ability to defend while simultaneously chipping in points. He has also dealt with two major injuries in the last five years, coinciding with the team’s direction of throwing the curtain off their retool. Back in 2021-22, he was off to the best start of his career (7-24-31 in 34 GP), on pace for 75 points, a clear 15-point jump from his previous high. A devastating injury in an OT loss to Dallas wiped away a career season. The blueliner then got back to regular productivity for two more seasons, highlighted by a 15-goal surge in 2023-24, with seven goals off the powerplay. He sustained another serious injury in the 24-25 preseason, limiting him to playing only 30 games, curiously, during a season in which the team accumulated 105 points. 

Last season, Doughty was edged by Brandt Clarke by seven minutes of EVs (even-strength minutes), though playing in 10 fewer games. Unsurprisingly, with 10 or more games played fewer than the entire D-corps last season, he still edged everyone out in total time on ice. Not a single Kings defenseman has leapfrogged him in overall average ice time since Doughty donned a Kings uniform (2008 to present). 

Though there is a signal that the times have changed. He was removed from the first unit of the powerplay last season, as some wisdom from management has shown, accounting for the inevitable and necessary changing of the guard.

In a way that Anze Kopitar’s departure had a long-term vision in some form of protection in Quinton Byfield back in 2020, the Kings had a plan in place for their former cornerstone blueliner to have a capable replacement. Clarke was drafted in 2021 for this purpose, and it’s taken a long time to get to this point (arguably too long), with a laundry list of right-shot defensemen who fell in the wake of keeping Doughty and Clarke as the two top right-shot defensemen (Brock Faber, Matt Roy, Sean Walker, Sean Durzi, Helge Grans, and more recently, Jordan Spence).

That’s a massive heap of talent, quality minute eaters, and potential, spilled to make Doughty and Clarke fixated as the one-two, or now, the two-one.

During the offseason, the team took that next step towards that exact change, taking care of a no-brainer task by locking up Clarke to a five-year, $37 million contract, carrying a $7.4 million cap hit per season (AAV). That value could make it one of the best ‘steal’ contracts in the league in just a couple of seasons, potentially starting this upcoming season. The 23-year-old is the future of the Kings' defensive core, while being a black sheep amongst a group of defense-first defensemen. Stylistically, he contrasts with this offensively void group of blueliners but is every bit the type of defender they need.

Despite Clarke’s own dip in production per game (1.08 points per 60 vs 1.20 in 2024-2025) with a higher aggregate of point production (40 points vs 33), he materialized one of the more impressive seasons despite carrying the blueline offensively while the D-corps incessantly sank the forward group for the 2025-2026 season. He posted the strongest RelCF% of his young career across 82 games (3.2%), and his GF% was a staggering 60.19% (11th amongst 146 defensemen at EVs with 1,000+ minutes played) as a sole bright spot in a defensive corps where the puck in the offensive zone withered away on their stick blades.

Where he lives and thrives is his elite vision, as that is the outlier performance metric on the Kings blueline. I typically look at primary assists to back this up. Primary assists can certainly come from passing to a forward who ‘takes it all the way’ to score, but on the LA Kings, that can be counted on a single hand or finger each season. Even so, that same point of view warrants a similar response: the ability to outlet and give forwards an opportunity to expose the opposition, either in transition or off a properly executed cycle in the offensive zone. That takes vision, but of course not all primary assists look like this:

In 2024-2025, Clarke posted 11 primary assists at EVs, ranking 23rd-best amongst 138 defensemen who logged 1,000+ minutes. Important to note that the 22 players who logged more primary assists, on average, logged 100-200+ more minutes. Last year, with 18 primaries total, Clarke jumps to 8th best in the league in that same metric. Even more impressive and coincidentally depressing for the other blueliners is that Clarke’s 18 primary helpers account for 64.2% of the team’s total production of primary assists from the blueline last season (18 of the 28 total). 

Keep in mind, when regarding this blueline: It is well accounted for that the loss of Vladislav Gavrikov and Jordan Spence (16 combined primary assists in 24-25) deeply impacted the blueline’s ability to generate offense, as the replacements in Brian Dumoulin and Cody Ceci simply fall flat in terms of the same impact. As seen in the seasons past, the Kings could roll out a formidable second pair. The Kings truly had an excellent three in the form of Gavrikov, who, during the more recent Doughty injury in 24-25, played as their one. Adding Spence to his side created an excellent pairing despite Spence’s ice time evaporating in the playoffs, just ahead of his departure from the team. 

The way the blueline was rebuilt in the aftermath of these departures created a surplus of offensive restriction from a teamwide standpoint (14th in GF to 29th in one season). Given the reshaping of the blueline and Clarke’s production, it makes it even more impressive what he accomplished in a teamwide offensive doldrum of a season.

Critics will point out that deployment will certainly skew his numbers, but the sample from last year, with increased responsibilities, warrants a look. 

Out of the 138 defensemen in 24-25 who logged 1,000+ minutes, he was 15th best in SF% (shots for vs shots faced), 21st in Corsi%, 36th in SCF% (scoring chances for vs against), 41st in HDCF%, 2nd best in HDGF%, but the 4th highest % of offensive zone starts in the league at even strength. For context, given their higher minutes and in-game usage, Cale Makar and Devon Toews ranked below Clarke, 5th and 6th, respectively. Top players on the backend will be weaponized in the offensive zone to create higher, more threatening leverage.

In 25-26, Clarke was 10th amongst the 146 defensemen who logged 1000+ minutes of EVs in offensive zone starts. Clarke was outshined analytically by Spence of the Ottawa Senators (who saw even more of a sheltered EVs role) but still posted respectable placements amongst the league’s crop of defensemen (27th Corsi%, 16th SF%, 21st GF%, 47th in SCF%, 8th in HDCF%, 54th in HDGF%). These analytics didn't improve across the board when given tougher deployment. Take that as you will, but based on the numbers, his underlying stats were more favorable in 24-25, when sheltered to a more extreme extent at EVs.

Given tougher minutes, albeit not much, Clarke still posted analytics reflective of a top-30 defenseman in the league. It doesn't necessarily save him from the argument that he wouldn't get crushed if absorbing most of Doughty's minutes, per se. It also still doesn't quite dodge the aspect that Clarke is the purest, most talented defenseman the organization has developed since Doughty was drafted back in 08’.

Stats and underlying questions aside, there’s some quality hockey irony there in the fact that Clarke modeled his game after Erik Karlsson, a Doughty contrast and a player consistently tied to the potential captain of the Kings during the ‘best defenseman in the league’ tribulations from 2012-2016, along with a then-still-formidable Duncan Keith. 

Just like Karlsson, Clarke doesn’t scream the standard ‘LA King' by any measure, since he takes risks and stuns viewers and players alike with his craftiness in the offensive zone. But his rise, contract signaling, and the aging out of Doughty represent a much-needed change for the organization, particularly with their arguably best crop of forwards on paper in quite some time and an uptempo new coach in Peter Laviolette. The forward group can only do so much when dragged around by a slow-moving, offensively dry defensive core, as last season made clear with extreme prejudice.

The Doughty era is coming to a close, as it’s Clarke’s time to shine, despite the fact that Doughty will still be on the roster (Ken Holland was non-committal about an extension).  Doughty will still likely log an inordinate amount of minutes in 2026-2027, as the soon-to-be 37-year-old remains the Kings' second-best offensive option by a country mile and Clarke is yet to see a less sheltered role. Hamstringing this even further: as much credit is due for the Holland dodge and spin-moving the Doughty extension, the team's Achilles’ heel of a blueline remained unchanged with the exception of an Erik Gustafsson swap for Jacob Moverare in the offseason.

It comes down to the two defensemen as the key cogs in what seems like another pivotal season, while relying on an increasingly alarming number of similar elements to last season. The biggest question for me is whether Clarke will be a regular 22+ minute player next season. That's a whole two minutes better than last season's avg TOI, but well spread across a whole season, as these Kings live and die on the margins.

Analytics and offensive starkness compared to the other five defensemen tell me he should be well in the 24+ minute range next season, flying high under Laviolette and getting the reformed forward group up the ice. 

Given the blueline personnel's entrenchment, the Clarke effect will determine next season's ceiling. The guard is changing, whether the blueline is ready or not.