LOS ANGELES, CA – In a league that reached its highest level of parity in the salary cap era in its early years, the Los Angeles Kings have improved their overall standings despite a clear-cut picture of their performance. They have lost more games than they have won, with nine losses coming in extra time.
The franchise should be highly grateful for the extra point, as it adds to the point percentage. If not, this is a clear-cut struggling team on paper, as they have already confirmed that aspect with the eye test. Despite an acute ability to keep games close, come from behind, and get games past regulation, this team has emphatically become the dullest Kings team of the 2020s.
They have a player, Andrei Kuzmenko, who reinvigorated a historically inept offensive roster last year and now finds himself in an Arthur Kaliyev-like position. The more time passes in this situation, up in the press box, the more likely the player is to hit waivers, as he's already spent most of his career as a trade chip around the league. His value has undoubtedly hit new lows, as that 39-goal season in Vancouver seems miles away.
Whether this is a Jim Hiller decision or not, the unraveling of his choices has become a daily occurrence for individuals monitoring this club. That includes the use of his analytical darling, Brandt Clarke, the fifth-most-used defenseman among the six regulars. That's one offensively inclined defenseman in a poorly mobile corps, with relatively barren offensive gumption all around.
The Kings' center depth has little to no punch. Anze Kopitar, in his final season in the league, leads the bunch in goals (6) despite the turnover needed from Quinton Byfield. In Byfield, the Kings have a solid piece down the middle. However, his pass-first, centric, bound-play approach constricts his overall game, as the shot-threat aspect of his game, while a work in progress, has made Byfield straightforward to defend.
There's Phillip Danault, a quintessential LA King on paper, yet to score a goal this season. While outlets have dampened talk of him wanting out of LA or being shopped, there's smoke to this fire. Most major media outlets, aside from the clickbait, have reported on this en masse. Just as with the Kuzmenko dialogue above, I am skeptical of his price tag and the return if Ken Holland were to execute a move by shipping out the French Canadian.
If we continue following this trend, there's Holland himself. If ownership brought in Holland, it wasn't to rebuild. He's here to win now. And the current forecast isn't exactly fueling optimism. The forecast on the horizon tells me Danault and/or Kuzmenko will be wearing a different jersey by the end of the season. Swapping players of that caliber, given where they are currently trending, would have to involve salary tension and high-yielding assets going the other way to keep this team in a "win now" mode. So, for anyone thinking Nashville would do a one-for-one with Danault for Ryan O'Reilly, keep dreaming. Assets that the Kings lack would be going the other way. How's that future shaping up?
It's a precarious position. Kings have hemorrhaged assets over the last five years to move the needle incrementally. Despite any front-office message of "being right there" or matching franchise records for points, the team has faltered in the same spot for four seasons in a row. The pressure is on more now than ever, and the future is almost certainly going to be leveraged to make that push, because if we've learned anything about the 2025-26 Kings, it is that they are not good enough. Once again, good enough to get into the playoffs, but to become cannon fodder for an actual contender.
The future is no longer as bright as it once was. When Rob Blake took over, the pipeline and franchise outlook were excellent. But after a nosedive, the franchise gave the nod to a new GM to go all in. In Holland, they practically have no choice but to go for it. Which essentially means the minimal stock the team has is about to be dispensed, just to keep the team in middle-ground purgatory, until new ownership or a separation of powers like a Lombardi-structure comes back into place, prompting, unfortunately, another rebuild.
That course is becoming clearer and more transparent. This is while having a true elite player in Adrian Kempe and a goalie proving everyone wrong with the continued heroics of Darcy Kuemper, who, in all fairness, was doubted to deliver the same returns as his first full season in LA, as his Vezina form is still very much intact. A non-call to Team Canada this February would be a snub in the highest regard.
For the Kings, this is a dangerous course, compounded by doubling down, tripling down, and quadrupling down on poor decisions and an early exit from a rebuild that was steadying. The Kings are currently a mirage, very much in the thick of the playoff race, but a team lacking the ability to be a true contender, something that seems to be a tale as old as time.
The panic meter is rising, as if one move could fix it all. The likelihood of that seems to decrease with each passing game. It's not as if the Kings could realistically pull off a trade like the one the Wild just did, either. The Kings tried something similar with Pierre Luc Dubois, and are fortunate that it has morphed into Kuemper.
The team looks cornered and visually hamstrung, as anyone who watches consistently can attest to the 60 minutes of chip chase and defensemen who ring pucks off the glass to outlet, and now their record is catching up to that.