- Kings prospect Matthew Mania is on the move in the OHL as Flint announced that they’ve acquired the defenseman as part of a six-player, nine-pick trade. The 19-year-old was a fifth-round pick last year, going 150th overall and is coming off an injury-riddled season that limited him to just 45 games where he had four goals and 19 assists. Los Angeles has until June 1, 2025 to sign Mania to an entry-level deal or lose his rights.
Kings Rumors
Kings, Andre Lee Agree To Two-Way Deal
The Kings re-signed forward Andre Lee to a one-year, two-way contract, per a team release. His minor-league salary for next season wasn’t disclosed, but he’ll earn the minimum $775K salary if on the NHL roster.
Lee, 24 next month, was the Kings’ seventh-round pick in 2019 and is one of the bigger forward prospects in their pool at 6’4″ and 205 lbs. After he was drafted, he played three seasons of college hockey with UMass-Lowell, accumulating 64 points in 87 games there before signing his entry-level deal with Los Angeles in 2022.
He’s yet to make his NHL debut but has slowly worked his way up the organizational depth chart during his two seasons suiting up for AHL Ontario. Lee can play both left wing and center and is coming off a strong end to his season, scoring four times in eight playoff games for the Reign. However, he’s totaled just 14 goals and 24 points in 105 regular-season games with Ontario since beginning his professional career on a tryout to close the 2021-22 season.
Lee isn’t a likely candidate to make the NHL roster next season, but even getting minor-league games out of a seventh-round pick is a decent bit of work. He won’t require waivers to return to Ontario if cut from the roster during training camp, but that will change if he re-signs for 2025-26 or beyond. Lee was slated to be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights next month, and he’ll have the same status when his deal expires next offseason.
Kings Place Kim Nousiainen On Unconditional Waivers
May 30: Nousiainen passed through waivers unclaimed and can have his deal terminated by the Kings, per CapFriendly.
May 29: Thinning out their contractual commitments for the 2024-25 NHL season, the Los Angeles Kings have placed defenseman Kim Nousiainen on unconditional waivers for contract termination, according to a team announcement. In all likelihood, Nousiainen will test his luck next season overseas in his native Finland.
Originally drafted with the 119th overall pick of the 2019 NHL Draft by the Kings, Nousiainen has only spent the last three years playing for the organization. Nousiainen made the jump to North America after signing his entry-level contract with Los Angeles on Marco 30, 2022.
A moderately capable two-way defenseman in the Finnish Liiga, Nousiainen saw his offense completely crater during his tenure with the Ontario Reign of the American Hockey League. In 97 games spent with the Kings’ highest affiliate, Nousiainen only mustered two goals and 17 points in total, including two points in eight postseason contests.
Now that the remaining year on his entry-level contract is set to be terminated, Nousiainen will likely opt to rejoin KalPa of the Finnish Liiga — an organization he has spent nearly all of his professional career with. Across four years in Finland’s highest professional league, Nousiaien is already a veteran of 146 games, scoring 19 goals and 60 points overall.
Kings Hire Newell Brown As Assistant Coach
The Kings announced Thursday that they’ve named Newell Brown an assistant coach. He’d served in the same role for the Ducks for the past three seasons, but earlier this month, Anaheim announced they wouldn’t be renewing his contract.
Brown, 62, had a brief collegiate and minor-league playing career in the 1980s but immediately transitioned to coaching upon retiring. He’s been behind an NHL bench as an assistant in every season since 1996, working with the Blackhawks, Blue Jackets, Canucks, Coyotes and Ducks but has never gotten a shot as a head coach at the highest level.
The Ontario native has called Southern California home for most of his coaching career, serving on Anaheim’s staff on three different occasions (1998-2000, 2006-2010, 2021-2024). After winning a Stanley Cup with the Kings’ closest geographical rival in 2007, he’ll jump to the other side of the Freeway Face-Off. There was a decent bit of interest in his services around the league after the Ducks let him go, with the Senators also expressing interest in adding him to new head coach Travis Green’s staff, reports Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun.
Brown will replace Trent Yawney on the Los Angeles bench, who mutually parted ways with the club two weeks ago today. The team confirmed that his areas of focus will be working with the club’s forward group and the power play. He completes head coach Jim Hiller’s staff as he enters his first full season leading an NHL bench, joining associate coach D.J. Smith, assistant coach Derik Johnson, goalie coach Mike Buckley and video coach Samson Lee.
Arthur Kaliyev Has Asked To Be Traded
This season was a rough one for Kings winger Arthur Kaliyev. After being a capable secondary scorer in his first two seasons, things more or less went off the rails in 2023-24. Now, the 22-year-old is believed to have asked for a trade, reports David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period.
Kaliyev put up a respectable 14 goals and 13 assists in his rookie year in 2021-22 and followed that up with an improvement in 2022-23, collecting 13 goals and 15 helpers despite missing 26 games. Accordingly, there was reason for optimism that he’d take another step forward this season while ideally being able to play a little higher in the lineup.
None of that happened. Instead, Kaliyev found himself a frequent healthy scratch, especially under Jim Hiller who had the interim tag lifted to become the full-time head coach earlier this month. Along the way, he managed just seven goals and eight assists in 51 games while logging less than 12 minutes a night of playing time. Then, when the playoffs came, he was scratched for all five games in their opening-round loss to Edmonton.
While his stock isn’t at its highest right now, Kaliyev could be an intriguing buy-low candidate for some teams. 71 points in 188 career NHL appearances is relatively decent for a player who has averaged just over 12 minutes a night over that time. Meanwhile, while he’s a pending restricted free agent, Kaliyev is owed a qualifying offer of just $874K and doesn’t have salary arbitration rights. Coming off the year he just had, it’s hard to see him commanding much more than that on a one-year contract.
The Kings were believed to be open to trading Kaliyev during the regular season (amidst speculation that Kaliyev himself would also be open to being moved) but a suitable swap never came to fruition. Now, they’re believed to be willing to move on from him altogether according to a recent report from Eric Stephens of The Athletic (subscription link) so the asking price will almost certainly be lower now. With Kaliyev wanting to move on and Los Angeles believed to be wanting to move on from him, he seems quite likely to be moved in the coming weeks.
Lane Lambert A Potential Option For Kings Assistant Role
- Earlier today, John Hoven of Mayors Manor looked at five candidates most suitable for the vacant assistant coach position with the Los Angeles Kings. Of the five, Lane Lambert appears to be the most qualified, as he recently held the position of head coach of the New York Islanders for nearly two years. Before his time with the Islanders, Lambert spent over a decade as an assistant coach with the Nashville Predators and Washington Capitals.
[SOURCE LINK]
Viktor Arvidsson Likely To Test Free Agency
- Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic is reporting that Los Angeles Kings forward Viktor Arvidsson is expected to test the free-agent market on July 1st. The Skelleftea, Sweden native dealt with injuries this season and dressed in just 18 games. While he was limited in playing time, the 31-year-old had solid numbers in a low sample size, posting six goals and nine assists. Arvidsson has been a good point producer since joining the Kings via trade in July 2021, in 161 games as a King he has registered 52 goals and 71 assists.
Kings Sign Taylor Ward, Joe Hicketts To One-Year Contracts
The Los Angeles Kings have announced the signing of forward Taylor Ward and defenseman Joe Hicketts to matching one-year, two-way, league-minimum contracts. They also confirmed the previously-reported signing of forward Kaleb Lawrence to a three-year, entry-level deal yesterday.
Both Ward and Hicketts have become familiar faces in the AHL over the last three seasons. Ward stepped into pros with a one-year, entry-level contract signed in March of 2022 – a deal he earned with a strong performance on an amateur try-out agreement with the Ontario Reign, following his Senior year at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He’s since appeared in 158 AHL games, recording 23 goals and 68 points. That includes his career-high 11 goals and 32 points posted in 71 games this season. Ward is still awaiting the first NHL call-up of his career – a feat his new contract keeps him eligible for. He added a good deal of physical confidence, especially in front of the net, last season and could be a go-to depth option, should L.A. need extra forwards next season.
Meanwhile, Hicketts will look to fight his way back to the NHL on this new deal. The 28-year-old defender also began his career as an undrafted free agent, signing a three-year entry-level contract with the Detroit Red Wings after a strong performance as a training camp invitee in 2014. He made his NHL debut a little over three years later, appearing in 22 games with the Red Wings between 2018 and 2020. Hicketts only posted five points, all assists, in those outings, adding four penalty minutes and a collective -9. He’s since spent the last four years in the minor leagues, on tours with the Griffins, the Iowa Wild, and the Reign. The stable role has led to strong results, with Hicketts posted a career-high 42 assists and 48 points in 72 games with in Iowa last season – and 20 points in 30 games with the Regin this year, after missing three months with an early-season injury. It will be that momentum that Hicketts enters the 2024-25 season with, looking to fight for an NHL role among a crowded Kings defense group.
Kings May Non-Tender Carl Grundstrom, Arthur Kaliyev
Each year, the unrestricted free agent market always has a few late additions, thanks to teams opting not to issue qualifying offers to retain the rights of some of their restricted free agents. We’re starting to get an idea of who some of those names could be, as Eric Stephens of The Athletic wrote earlier this week that the Kings are unlikely to bring pending RFA wingers Carl Grundström and Arthur Kaliyev back next season.
To see the organization cut bait entirely with Kaliyev would be slightly surprising. The 22-year-old was one of the first picks of the second round in the 2019 draft, and he’d been a capable depth scorer for the Kings in back-to-back years heading into this season.
But the Uzbekistan-born American national struggled mightily in his junior campaign, limited to seven goals and 15 points in 51 games. Again, he failed to earn anything above a fourth-line role, averaging fewer than 12 minutes per game for the second year in a row.
Kaliyev was scratched for most of the second half of the campaign and, as Stephens points out, only played in 13 of the final 34 games of the regular season after Jim Hiller took over behind the bench. With Hiller signing a multi-year extension, there’s little hope of the offensively-minded Kaliyev providing much value to the Kings in a limited role with a fractured relationship with the coach. Stephens also seconded mid-season noise that Kaliyev was on the trade block.
They could still trade his signing rights and recoup a draft pick for them, but they’re unlikely to land much if teams gain the sense that he’ll end up on the open market regardless. He’s not eligible for salary arbitration this summer after completing his entry-level contract.
Grundström, meanwhile, is arbitration-eligible, something that could dissuade the Kings from issuing him a qualifying offer, Stephens said. The 26-year-old has been a serviceable checking fourth-liner for the club since arriving via trade from the Maple Leafs in 2019 but missed a solid chunk of this season due to injury. When in the lineup, he contributed eight goals and 12 points in 50 games while averaging 10:56 per game.
The Swedish winger was signed to a two-year deal with a $1.3MM AAV, though, which carries an equivalently expensive $1.3MM qualifying offer on a one-year deal. It wouldn’t be a drastic overpay for his services, but the Kings likely (and rightfully) feel they could save a little bit of cap space by replacing his role on the open market with a player making closer to the $775K league minimum.
L.A. has $19.9MM in projected cap space this summer with 10 open roster spots as they try and push themselves into the upper echelon of the Pacific Division, per CapFriendly. A decent chunk of that will go to pending RFA Quinton Byfield, coming off a breakout 20-goal, 55-point season.
Kings Sign Kaleb Lawrence
The June 1st deadline to sign many prospects across the league is fast approaching and in the coming days, several players should sign entry-level deals with their respective teams. One of those is forward Kaleb Lawrence as CapFriendly reports (Twitter link) that the Kings have signed him to a three-year contract. The deal carries an AAV of $852.5K and breaks down as follows:
2024-25: $775K base salary, $77.5K signing bonus, $82.5K AHL salary
2025-26: $775K base salary, $77.5K signing bonus, $82.5K AHL salary
2026-27: $775K base salary, $77.5K signing bonus, $82.5K AHL salary
The 21-year-old was a seventh-round pick by Los Angeles back in 2022 with the Kings opting to take a late flyer on a 6’7 forward after playing in just two games in the previous two seasons combined due to injury and COVID-19 wiping out the 2020-21 OHL campaign. After being picked, Lawrence had a decent showing with Owen Sound, collecting 16 goals and 21 assists in 50 games.
Lawrence was then moved to Ottawa in the offseason and produced at a similar rate this season, collecting 10 goals and eight helpers in 30 games before being traded to London in January. With the Knights, he added 10 goals and nine assists in 28 regular season contests before adding nine more points in eight playoff appearances. His season hasn’t come to an end yet either even after the OHL championship as he’ll take part in the Memorial Cup which begins on Friday.
Given his age, Lawrence will be too old to return to the junior level next season. Instead, he’ll get his feet wet in the pros, either with AHL Ontario or ECHL Greenville.