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Trade Deadline Primer: Los Angeles Kings

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With the All-Star break in the rearview, the trade deadline looms large and is now just a month away. Where does each team stand, and what moves should they be looking to make? We continue our look around the league with the Los Angeles Kings.

The Los Angeles Kings are maintaining their form this season, once again looking like a team that could find their way into the postseason but not one that poses much of a threat. They currently sit atop a tightly-packed Western Conference Wild Card race, with five teams sitting within five points of the Kings. They’ve played the second-fewest games in the conference – 50 – but also boast the eighth-fewest goals in the Conference. The Kings will be hoping that the Trade Deadline can work hand-in-hand with new head coach Jim Hiller – who took over for Todd McLellan in early February – to bring a needed spark to the lineup in the second half of the season.

Record

24-16-10, 4th in the Pacific Division.

Deadline Status

Conservative Buyers

Deadline Cap Space

$2.0 MM on deadline day, 1/3 retention slots used, 43/50 contracts used, per CapFriendly.

Upcoming Draft Picks

2024: LAK 1st, LAK 4th, LAK 6th, LAK 7th
2025: LAK 1st, LAK 2nd, LAK 3rd, LAK 4th, LAK 5th, LAK 6th, LAK 7th

Trade Chips

Los Angeles is approaching the deadline with very little cap to work with and very few picks in the 2024 NHL Draft. Those factors make any trade a challenge for the Kings. But they might be able to leverage the value of former draft capital, with Alex Turcotte and Arthur Kaliyev looking like two of their best bargaining chips. Neither player has found their groove in the NHL since being drafted by the Kings. Kaliyev has spent the last two seasons in and out of the Kings lineup, playing just 38 games and scoring just 14 points this season. Still, he’s been with the NHL lineup for three seasons, scoring 70 points in 175 games over the last four seasons. That’s more of a role than Turcotte has received – with the former fifth-overall pick spending most of the last four seasons in the AHL. He’s played in four NHL games this season and finally recorded his first goal and assist in the league. He also has 23 points in 30 AHL games this season.

While neither 22-year-old has a strong pro resume as it stands, there’s a chance teams could remain hopeful that a change of scenery could bring back their draft day hope. But even if they do, Los Angeles will likely still need to move cap to make any deal work. They may manage that by trading depth forwards like Carl Grundstrom or Blake Lizotte. Grundstrom has continued to operate on the team’s bottom line, playing 50 games and scoring 12 points this season, while Lizotte has played 34 games as a bottom-six centerman. They each carry cap hits below $2.0MM and could bring value to a team looking towards a long playoff run – Lizotte adding center depth and Grundstrom bringing good grit. But it may be hopeful to think that either player will be enough to swing a deal without L.A. also including draft capital.

Team Needs

1) Complementary Depth – The headline of the Kings season has been the struggles of new acquisition Pierre-Luc Dubois. The team traded for the 25-year-old this off-season, sending Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari, and a 2024 second-round draft pick back to the Winnipeg Jets. Dubois has since recorded just 21 points in 50 games with the Kings, falling to the team’s third-line center role. He’ll likely receive a productive winger with Viktor Arvidsson returning to the lineup, but the team shouldn’t pass up a chance to get him additional help at the Trade Deadline. Dubois has scored 60 or more points in three of his seven NHL seasons, including each of the last two, and could benefit from skilled wingers that can support his drive into the offensive zone. Los Angeles could seek out options like Anthony Duclair or Morgan Frost, who both carry cheaper cap hits, or they could shoot for a more veteran presence through the likes of Vladimir Tarasenko or Jason Zucker, who would each require additional cap space. But without many trade pieces to work with, it’s unlikely that L.A. could compete for top-of-the-market options like Jake Guentzel.

2) Future Capital – Los Angeles could certainly be a team in the market for a goaltender, or extended defensive depth, but they’ll likely fall flat of offers other teams can make. Instead, their Deadline plan should be to hear out as many offers on young defensemen or top minor-league forwards, looking to bank whatever future capital they could get. The Kings are likely still years away from the top of the standings, something made okay by the fact that they have the fifth-youngest lineup in the league. Dealing away veteran lineup pieces like Andreas Englund could have the benefit of opening space for young prospects like Brandt Clarke, netting the Kings modest compensation while also giving some of their recent top draft picks a chance to shine. That may be all Los Angeles can ask for, as they approach a deadline where they’ll be cap-strapped and looking for a spark.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Carl Grundström Returns To Los Angeles For Evaluation

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  • Kings winger Carl Grundström has returned to Los Angeles from the team’s road trip to be evaluated for a lower-body injury, interim head coach Jim Hiller said Wednesday (via Zach Dooley of the team’s official site). Grundström left last night’s 7-0 loss to the Sabres in the first period, recording one shot on goal in 3:43 of ice time. The 26-year-old has struggled to produce after rattling off four points in five games to open the season, posting eight goals and 12 points in 50 games on the year with a -2 rating while averaging 10:56 per game. The second-round pick of the Maple Leafs in 2016 is a pending RFA with arbitration rights upon completion of his two-year, $2.6MM deal.

Pacific Notes: Arvidsson, McTavish, Jones

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Kings winger Viktor Arvidsson skated in a full-contact jersey Friday for the first time since sustaining back and lower-body injuries during the preseason, Zach Dooley of the team’s official site reports. The 30-year-old’s return to the lineup is not imminent, but it’s a major step forward toward Arvidsson making his season debut before the March 8 trade deadline.

The 5-foot-9 sniper has not played since Los Angeles’ loss to the Oilers in Game 6 of last year’s first-round series. His absence has left a significant hole in the cap-strapped Kings’ top-nine, and as such, their 18th-ranked offense has performed under expectations.

Arvidsson has been skating with a non-contact designation for a few weeks, so his conditioning is likely close to game action after the extended absence. Interim head coach Jim Hiller has not commented on when Arvidsson could make his season debut.

The Swede is in his third season in Hollywood, notching 46 goals and 108 points in 143 games since a 2021 trade brought him West from Nashville. He’s in the final season of a seven-year, $29.75MM deal signed with the Predators in 2017 and will be an unrestricted free agent this summer.

Other updates from SoCal:

  • Ducks sophomore Mason McTavish is out Friday against the Oilers with an upper-body injury, head coach Greg Cronin said. It’s unclear whether this is a recurrence of the upper-body injury that sidelined McTavish for seven games in December. The 2021 third-overall pick looks well on his way to holding down a long-term center spot in Anaheim’s top six, ranking fourth on the team in scoring with 13 goals and 31 points in 43 games. His 54.2 faceoff win percentage is the highest on the team, and while his possession metrics this season are mediocre, they don’t suggest he’s been a defensive liability.
  • Replacing McTavish in the lineup will be winger Max Jones, who was activated off injured reserve Friday, according to the NHL’s media portal. The 25-year-old has not played since sustaining an upper-body injury on Jan. 5 against the Jets that caused him to miss Anaheim’s last 12 games. A pending RFA upon completion of his three-year, $3.885MM deal, the 2016 first-round pick has four goals and eight points in 34 games.

Kings Hire D.J. Smith As Assistant Coach

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2/6: The Kings have officially announced the hiring of Smith as an assistant coach for the remainder of the 2023-24 season.

2/5: The Kings are adding former Senators head coach D.J. Smith as an assistant, The Athletic’s Eric Stephens reports Monday.

Smith fills the hole created on the Kings’ bench when they promoted assistant Jim Hiller to an interim head coach role on Friday after firing Todd McLellan. The Senators let go of Smith as their head coach on Dec. 18 after an 11-15-0 start to the season.

Before accepting the head coaching job with Ottawa for the 2019-20 season, Smith spent four years on the Maple Leafs bench as an assistant under Mike Babcock, primarily working with the team’s penalty kill unit. Over that time, Toronto’s penalty kill had an 81.4% success rate, good enough for 12th in the league.

If there’s one area where the struggling Kings don’t need help, however, it’s their penalty kill. At 87.3%, they own the league’s best shorthanded unit by a 1.4% margin.

As a player, Smith spent parts of three seasons in the league between 1996 and 2003, notching a goal and an assist in 45 career outings with the Maple Leafs and Avalanche. Primarily a defenseman at the AHL level, Smith slotted into the Avs’ lineup as an enforcer for 34 games in the 2002-03 campaign.

The Kings have a slower return to play than most other teams coming out of the All-Star break. They don’t suit up again until Saturday against the Oilers, by which time Smith is expected to join the team. Per Stephens, Los Angeles returns to full practice on Thursday.

Kings Fire Todd McLellan, Name Jim Hiller Interim Head Coach

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The Kings have fired head coach Todd McLellan, according to a team statement Friday. Assistant Jim Hiller will serve as Los Angeles’ interim head coach for the remainder of the 2023-24 season.

McLellan, 56, was in the final season of a five-year contract earning him roughly $5MM per season, according to CapFriendly. He’d signed a one-year extension prior to this season, which the Kings will still owe him.

The veteran NHL head coach oversaw the Kings’ return to relevancy after their late-2010s retool, posting a 164-130-44 record in 338 appearances and guiding them to playoff berths in back-to-back seasons for the first time since a five-year run between 2010 and 2014. A team with Stanley Cup aspirations this year has now fallen out of the divisional playoff picture, though, going 3-8-6 in their last 17 games and narrowly occupying a Wild Card spot.

Most pointed to the Kings’ lack of stable goaltending entering the season as a reason why their record might crumble. Interestingly enough, that hasn’t been the case. While he’s going through a recent rut, veteran Cam Talbot has given Los Angeles above-average play with a .911 SV% and 2.5 goals saved above expected (per MoneyPuck) in 32 appearances. Since a mid-season recall from AHL Ontario, backup David Rittich has been excellent, with a .925 SV% and a 5-1-3 record in 11 games.

They’ve also dominated possession. Their expected goals share and Corsi share at 5-on-5 play both rank third in the league, but despite that, their offense has struggled to produce with subpar shooting talent. Their 152 goals scored rank 16th in the league at the All-Star break – exactly in the middle of the pack.

That would still assign blame to a roster construction issue and not a coaching one, given the team’s systems under McLellan, have been conducive to dominating play. The team’s biggest offseason swing, a trade and subsequent eight-year, $68MM extension for Pierre-Luc Dubois, has crashed and burned. The 25-year-old has 10 goals and 20 points in 48 games, far below expectations. He’s averaging under 16 minutes per game and has a team-worst -16 rating.

Nonetheless, Los Angeles will turn to a different voice to ensure they maintain their playoff spot and don’t slide further down the Western Conference standings. Hiller has been on the Kings’ staff since the beginning of last season after being let go as an assistant by the Islanders in the 2022 offseason. Prior to a three-year tenure on Long Island, Hiller served as an assistant in Toronto from 2015 to 2019 and spent the 2014-15 season as an assistant on the Red Wings’ bench. Before ascending to the NHL coaching ranks, he spent nearly a decade as a head coach in the WHL with the Chilliwack Bruins and Tri-City Americans.

Hiller’s NHL career was short-lived, but 40 of his 63 games came wearing a Kings jersey in the 1992-93 season when the Wayne Gretzky-led team advanced to the Stanley Cup Final. Hiller was involved in a major mid-season trade with the Red Wings that year, heading to Detroit along with future Hall-of-Famer Paul Coffey in a deal for winger Jimmy Carson.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Kings Assign Three Players To AHL

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With Los Angeles being off until February 10th, they’ve opted to make a trio of roster moves.  The team announced (Twitter link) that they’ve assigned forwards Alex Turcotte and Samuel Fagemo plus defenseman Brandt Clarke to AHL Ontario.

Turcotte was recalled last weekend and got into his first two games of the season with the Kings.  The second was certainly a successful one as the 22-year-old notched his first career NHL goal while picking up an assist in Wednesday’s victory over Nashville.  Turcotte has spent most of the year in the minors with the Reign, recording 23 points in 28 games so far.

Fagemo, meanwhile, has been shuffled back and forth recently, shifting between Los Angeles and Ontario three times over the past couple of weeks.  Playing time during that stretch was fairly limited as he made just four appearances, equaling the number he had with Nashville at the beginning of the season before they put him on waivers in November.  The 23-year-old has been quite productive with Ontario though, recording 20 goals and 13 assists in just 24 contests.

As for Clarke, he got off to a hot start with the Reign to start the season, collecting 32 points in 30 games, quite the mark for a rookie blueliner.  That earned him a recall four weeks ago and since then, he has been in and out of the lineup with the Kings.  Clarke has just one assist in six games so far while logging 16:15 per night, primarily on the third pairing with some time on the second power play unit.

With these moves, Los Angeles is now at the minimum-sized roster.  With Viktor Arvidsson still a little while away from returning (meaning he’ll remain on LTIR), the Kings will likely use that space to recall three players for their next appearance.  The determination on whether it’s these three or others will come next week.

Quinton Byfield To Return, Trevor Lewis Questionable For Wednesday

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Kings forward Quinton Byfield is expected to return Wednesday against the Predators, team editorial content manager Zach Dooley reports. The 21-year-old missed the last two games with an illness and was listed as day-to-day.

Unfortunately, underwhelming play from the rest of the squad has the Kings reeling. The team is 2-8-6 in their last 16 games and is now in a three-way tie for the two Western Conference Wild Card spots with the Blues and Predators. That makes Byfield’s return tonight a key piece of news ahead of Los Angeles’ most consequential game of the season thus far.

Other notes ahead of tonight’s Kings-Preds showdown on national TV in the United States:

  • Dooley also reports that depth forward Trevor Lewis is questionable for tonight after missing practice with an undisclosed injury Tuesday. Lewis skated this morning, but Dooley called his availability “wait and see.” The 37-year-old has five goals and nine points in 47 games this season after returning to his former squad on a one-year, $775K deal in free agency. Lewis was the Kings’ second of two first-round picks in 2006 and was a member of both the 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup-winning teams. While he hasn’t produced much offense, he’s been quite effective in a shutdown role for his league-minimum deal. Centering Blake Lizotte (currently injured) and Carl Grundström on the Kings’ fourth line, the trio has produced an expected goals share of 57.1%, per MoneyPuck. They’ve limited opponents to 2.09 expected goals against per 60 minutes, the lowest among any Los Angeles forward line with over 100 minutes together.

Strong Trade Interest In Chris Tanev

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Impact right-shot defensemen are typically in short supply and high demand and with the trade deadline now less than six weeks away, it appears this year will be no exception.  Accordingly, those with one to move will have no shortage of suitors and that’s the case for the Flames with defenseman Chris Tanev as Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that as many as ten teams have already reached out to Calgary GM Craig Conroy to inquire about the blueliner.

The 34-year-old has never been a significant point producer and has just nine points in 46 games so far this season but Tanev has a well-earned reputation as one of the top shutdown defensemen in the league.  He leads the Flames in shorthanded ice time while hanging around the 20-minute-per-game mark as he often does.  On top of that, Tanev is among the league leaders in blocked shots, collecting 135 already, good for fifth-most in the NHL.  Considering that teams are always looking to shore up their defensive reliability and penalty killing, it should come as no surprise that there are plenty of teams showing interest in Tanev.

Garrioch notes that the Maple Leafs, Canucks, and Kings are among those teams that have shown interest.  Toronto GM Brad Treliving is quite familiar with Tanev from his days in charge in Calgary and Garrioch suggests that the blueliner is currently their top target.  As for Vancouver, Tanev would be quite familiar with them having spent the first ten years of his career with them before joining Calgary as a free agent back in 2020.  Los Angeles, meanwhile, has an established top four but they have two youngsters (Brandt Clarke and Jordan Spence) and journeyman Andreas Englund rounding out the rest of the group; Tanev would certainly give them some more stability.

Ottawa has also been speculated as a team that could be interested with GM Steve Staios looking for a quality veteran or two.  However, with the Sens well out of playoff contention, it’s hard to see them coughing up the asking price and Tanev being open to going there over a postseason contender.  Worth noting is that Tanev has a 10-team no-trade clause, giving him some control in where he might go.  If an acquiring team wants to work out an extension at the same time, that also gives the veteran a bit more leverage to make sure he lands with a new organization of his choice.

With players of Tanev’s caliber hard to come by, it appears that Conroy has set a high asking price for his services.  Garrioch relays that the ask is believed to be at least a first-round pick plus a prospect; if teams get into a bidding war, they could get more than that as well if they’re willing to retain the maximum 50%.  Tanev has a $4.5MM AAV which is difficult for many contending teams to afford but if that is cut in half and perhaps Calgary takes a smaller contract back, most potential suitors should be able to make that work.

With more than a month until the trade deadline, there’s a good chance that Tanev won’t be leaving Calgary in the immediate future; the longer they wait, the easier it is for teams with regular cap space to afford the contract.  But if his market is strong as Garrioch suggests, the Flames will be poised to land a quality future return for Tanev’s services by the time March 8th comes around.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Kings Open To Trading Arthur Kaliyev

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Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman believes that the Los Angeles Kings could be willing to move on from winger Arthur Kaliyev if they can make a swap and acquire a depth player with some edge to their game as a potential replacement for the 22-year-old. Kaliyev has struggled to carve out a role with the Kings and may have reached a point in Los Angeles where it might be best for the team and player to go their separate ways.

Kaliyev has been a healthy scratch several times this month and has struggled this season with just six goals and eight assists in 38 games. Kaliyev has had his name pop up in trade rumors over the last few weeks and is likely looking for more consistency in his ice time and deployment. The former second-round pick looked as though he was turning the corner last year with 13 goals and 15 assists in 56 games but wasn’t able to carry his momentum into this season despite having a strong training camp.

Much has been made about Kaliyev’s offensive style not suiting the system that Kings head coach Todd McLellan likes to deploy as McLellan likes his teams to play an energy game where attention to detail and defensive responsibility are top of mind. Kaliyev’s talents lie more in the offensive side of the game, while his defensive skills are not his strong suit.

The Kings could wait to see what happens over the next few weeks with the club’s play heading into the trade deadline but given the struggles with Kaliyev’s development, it appears they would like to address some of their needs elsewhere before it’s too late.

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