LA Kings
Kings 2026-27 Season Preview: The First Year Without Anze Kopitar
Anze Kopitar retired at the end of last season. He was 39, he still put up 20 goals and 40 assists in 78 games, and he had been the center of this franchise for two decades.
Los Angeles spent the offseason trying to replace him with a new coach, a new star and a young forward who has been waiting his whole career for exactly this.
What changed
Artemi Panarin arrived. The long-sought post-Kopitar star forward, on a two-year extension that begins this fall with a full no-move clause. Adrian Kempe’s eight-year, maximum-term extension starts at the same time, also with a full no-move.
Peter Laviolette is the coach. Hired June 26 to replace interim coach D.J. Smith after a first-round playoff exit. Laviolette is 61, won a Stanley Cup with Carolina in 2006, and is expected to install a more offense-minded system.
Kopitar retired, Kuzmenko left. Andrei Kuzmenko departed in free agency after 15 goals and 25 points in 68 games. Scott Laughton, acquired at the 2026 deadline, re-signed for three years at $3.5 million per season as a fourth-line penalty-killer.
Otherwise, Ken Holland kept the core together: Panarin, Kempe, Quinton Byfield, Trevor Moore, Drew Doughty, Mikey Anderson, Brandt Clarke and Darcy Kuemper are all under contract.
The number that explains the offseason
220 goals — 29th in the NHL.
That’s what Los Angeles scored last season, and it’s the entire reason Laviolette is here and Panarin is here. A team that finishes 29th in scoring and loses its best two-way center doesn’t get to run the same system back.
Quinton Byfield has the job now
Barring a trade for a No. 1 center, Byfield inherits Kopitar’s role.
He’s 23, a former No. 2 overall pick, and carries a $6.25 million cap hit over the next three seasons — which makes him either the answer or one of the more attractive trade assets in the league, depending on how the next six months go.
The question is blunt: is he ready to be a true No. 1 center? Nobody in the organization has said no. Nobody has said yes either.
Brandt Clarke is the other leap
Clarke put up a career-high 40 points (eight goals, 32 assists) in 82 games last season, leading all Kings defensemen in scoring — and there was a significant drop after that. Doughty and Joel Edmundson, Clarke’s partner, tied for second among the blue line with 23 points apiece.
At 22, a big right-shot defenseman coming off a 40-point year is exactly the profile that gets paid. With Doughty’s $11 million cap hit expiring at the end of 2026-27, Clarke projects toward a long-term deal in the neighborhood of the seven-year, $9 million contract Luke Hughes signed in New Jersey.
If Los Angeles needs more scoring — and it does — the defensemen have to contribute more. Clarke is where that starts.
The Doughty question
Doughty averaged 23:05 of ice time last season and remains a steady presence at an age when most defensemen aren’t. He and the front office have been discussing his future throughout the offseason.
Whether something gets done before the season, during it, or at all is genuinely unresolved. It’s the kind of open question that hangs over a locker room.
What success looks like
Honest framing: the Kings were first-round fodder last season, losing to Colorado, and most projections don’t have them as much more than that without another significant move. Holland has a reputation for aggressive pursuit, so it isn’t impossible.
Failing that, this is a team running it back minus Kopitar, hoping for health and leap seasons from Byfield up front and Clarke on the blue line.
The markers:
– Goal scoring. Twenty-ninth is not survivable in the Western Conference. Laviolette’s system has to move that number.
– Byfield at center. Everything downstream depends on whether he can carry a first line.
– Clarke’s development. Both for this season and for the contract conversation coming right behind it.
– Panarin’s fit. A two-year window with a no-move clause is a short runway for a big bet.
Even with all of that going right, whether the Kings can do real damage in the West is a fair question. But the alternative — another year of Kopitar carrying a bottom-third offense — wasn’t available anymore.
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