Usage, Support, and the Myth of Regression

SAN DIEGO, CA — In the clutch stretch of time created by the Olympic break, with its long period for rest, decompression, and distance, I found myself returning to a question that has followed the Los Angeles Kings all season: what happened to Quinton Byfield?

After a fairly modest but upward trajectory over the past three seasons, the young center, once projecting toward a top-15 center ceiling leaguewide, appears to have hit a snag in his developmental curve. This isn’t a simple case of player regression. It’s a stress test of an organization that has repeatedly attempted to insulate itself down the middle rather than committing fully to developing one.

To understand how the Kings arrived here, it’s necessary to examine a long-standing organizational pattern. The franchise has found success developing prospects, particularly centers, by shifting them to the wing. Rasmus Kupari was a partial exception, receiving extended time at center, albeit in the bottom six with Blake Lizotte. Byfield and Alex Turcotte both have a bulk of their NHL tenures playing wing despite being drafted as centers. Go back further, and the pattern holds: Gabriel Vilardi, a drafted center, ultimately became a winger in Los Angeles and cemented in Winnipeg.

Interestingly, the inverse was true for Adrian Kempe, who was pushed into center responsibilities during the post-Dean Lombardi transitional years before eventually returning to the wing. Swapping from center to wing experimentation with Kempe resulted in a breakout, establishing himself as a top-line winger as a 26-year-old, as if by accident, or rather, reactionary by the organization, reinforcing a habit of improvisation due to a lack of a proper, functional plan for touted draft picks to integrate into the top six.

Byfield was supposed to be the exception. The Kings needed to flat-out commit to a long-term solution down the middle, and Byfield was dubbed that player, despite layers of insurance that ultimately strained both financial flexibility and roster clarity. Phillip Danault served as the first line of defense: a shutdown center who played above his projected ceiling for three seasons, often operating as a de facto 2C despite being acquired as insurance for Byfield.

The subsequent decision to acquire Pierre-Luc Dubois layered redundancy rather than clarity. In doing so, the Kings shipped out two drafted centers, Vilardi and Kupari, to acquire an established center. The results were telling: a 16-4-4 start, a midseason coaching change, and a five-game playoff exit (the worst result in their four-year return to the playoffs). The Dubois experiment imploded, and Danault exited Los Angeles in the current NHL iteration, leaving the organization with a familiar problem: a center issue.

That hole now funnels responsibility back to two young players in Byfield, Turcotte, and a soon-to-be-retired Anze Kopitar. Kopitar, while still an intelligent and effective player, has clearly lost a step, if not steps. Any usage that pushes him back into a 1C or a heavy 2C role predictably deflates his overall performance and that of his assigned wingers.

Turcotte’s situation underscores the systemic issue. After overcoming one of the most injury-plagued starts for a player in modern franchise history (currently on IR), his ceiling has understandably compressed into that of a quality 3C or, at best, a complementary top-six winger, a familiar outcome for drafted centers in this organization.

Before his current injury, Turcotte had benefited from elevation alongside Kevin Fiala and Andrei Kuzmenko. That trio now ranks second on the Kings in total minutes played as a line this season, lasting mostly through the churn of Jim Hiller’s attempts to resuscitate the offense.

There is some offensive pop there, but it is not a true top-six line. All three players struggle against top matchups, and two carry defensive question marks. This is a line designed to overwhelm the opposition's bottom six (something the organization has been chasing for four seasons), not to anchor a contender.

The structural reality becomes clear: the Kings have an aging former elite center capable of very limited 2C duties, and a developing center who currently profiles best in situational matchups. When Turcotte went down, that fragility was exposed, forcing Alex Laferriere, a winger, into center duty.

Laferriere has done commendably centering Corey Perry and Kempe, outscoring and outchancing opponents. But the underlying numbers tell a familiar story. The line is outshot (36–44), narrowly loses high-danger chances (16–17), and hovers near break-even possession (50.31% Corsi). This is survivable in short bursts, but it is not a sustainable model for a team attempting to contend.

A season ago, I created a visualization depicting the passing of the torch between Kopitar and Byfield, showing legitimate 1C progression outside of a handful of difficult matchups. This season has inverted that narrative. From a teamwide perspective, rush chances are down, defensive-zone labor is up, and the creativity that once defined Byfield’s game has noticeably faded.

In the last three seasons, Byfield logged heavy ice time with Kopitar (1399:19) and Kempe (1441:55), largely reflecting his deployment as a winger to start his NHL career. When isolating last season, his first full year at center, those totals drop sharply. His most common linemates during that breakout campaign were Laferriere (515:52), Fiala (484:39), and Warren Foegele (446:22). With each player isolated, Byfield dominated play, outscoring opponents 29–12, 24–14, and 22–13, respectively.

Leaning into the backend from last season to this season also shows a significant change. Last season, Byfield was on the ice with Vladislav Gavrikov and Jordan Spence 444:28 and 341:13, respectively. With those two, the team outscored the opposition 17-12 and 21-9. In the smaller sample size with Drew Doughty returning from injury to finish the season, the ice was tilted in dominant fashion, outscoring the opposition 10-1 in 155:55.

Remove Gavrikov and Spence with Cody Ceci and Brian Dumoulin, and there's a different story entirely. In 256:42 with Dumoulin, Byfield is even at 10-10 goals for vs against. With Ceci, they are pummelled 7-14. When Doughty is involved, it barely floats, 10-9. With Doughty’s most common partner, Mikey Anderson, they sink 11-15. The environment around Byfield has not merely shifted; it has been degraded.

This season tells a different story in the forward lines as well. Fiala began as Byfield’s primary winger (449:19), but the duo consistently leaked goals, getting outscored 11–15, and was eventually broken up to redistribute the offense. Since then, Byfield has skated most often with Joel Armia (230:37) and Foegele (209:31), while four additional forwards have rotated through the 60–150 minute range. The result is the most winger instability Byfield has faced since becoming a full-time center.

Compounding matters, Byfield has been deployed as the Kings’ primary shutdown center for much of the season, a role he began to grow into last year and has not relinquished. Sophomore slumps are common, and while this is not Byfield’s second NHL season, it is his second as a full-time center and his first opening the year as the top option. Add in the winger churn, a noticeable decline in defensive mobility and outlet efficiency compared to last season, and the burden of elite matchups, and it becomes clear this drop-off is not solely on the player.

That said, expectations still matter. A former second-overall pick in his sixth NHL season should be trending upward, not stalling. The confidence regression is real, and it raises valid questions not only about the roster’s center construct but also about the player himself.

The acquisition of Artemi Panarin provides the clearest inflection point of Byfield’s career. Panarin doesn’t absolve the center question; he clarifies it. With one of the league’s premier play-drivers on his wing, potentially reunited with Laferriere, Byfield now has the offensive support he has never had.

The ceiling remains higher than commonly believed, given his incredible raw toolkit (6'5/one of the best skaters in the league). While I wouldn't remotely categorize Byfield as a superstar, superstars don't need elite wingers to produce, as Connor McDavid elevating Zach Hyman proves. But development curves are not universal, and support matters. Until now, Fiala has been the best winger Byfield has worked with long-term, and Fiala cannot reliably handle top-six matchups.

This is finally a real test. If Byfield can approach a 0.8–1.0 points-per-game clip with Panarin on his wing, the Kings can credibly argue patience was warranted. If he cannot, the uncomfortable conclusion becomes unavoidable: not that Byfield failed, but that the organization waited too long to dedicate him as their 1C, and that the moves that followed were too little, too late.

The most significant in-season trade since the Lombardi era didn’t eliminate the center problem; it stripped away its context. What remains is no longer systemic. It’s individual.