Kings Recall Kenny Connors, Loan Angus Booth To AHL
Somewhat overshadowed after firing their coach this morning, the Los Angeles Kings called up prospect Kenny Connors from AHL Ontario, while Angus Booth has been loaned back in a corresponding transaction. The news was shared by the Ontario Reign (Twitter Link).
Selected in the fourth round of the 2022 draft by Los Angeles, Connors concluded his collegiate career at UMass-Amherst, entering the professional stage this year. The 22-year-old has 29 points in 49 AHL games, tied for fifth on the team, and also tied for 10th among league rookies. Prior to the campaign, Connors came just short of the club’s top 10 prospect list by Steven Ellis of The Daily Faceoff, but his AHL performance since then has been hard to miss.
Connors earned a call up in late January, but was unable to get into a game, as he still awaits his NHL debut. Disappointingly, he was scratched against his hometown team the Flyers, and was quietly reassigned not long after.
Never exploding offensively at UMass-Amherst, with a career high of 29 points in his final college season, the Pennsylvania native’s two-way acumen has resulted in a quick call up. Even if his expectation shattering point totals don’t last, Connors has the tools to become a solid role player for the Kings.
On the other hand, Booth is headed back down after also not yet making his debut. The defenseman was actually selected 13 spots after Connors in 2022. He was recalled just yesterday, as Andrei Kuzmenko landed on injured reserve with a week-to-week designation. Booth simply served as an extra body, not expected to play, where he’ll now return to Ontario where he’s posted 10 points and 26 penalty minutes in 42 games. Still just 21, the Montreal native plays a steady shutdown role, perhaps needing to build more strength to emerge as a full time NHLer.
Now set to host Colorado tomorrow night with Jim Hiller gone and associate D.J. Smith stepping in as interim head coach, Connors could finally get a look in the team’s bottom six sometime this week.
Kings Fire Jim Hiller, Name D.J. Smith Interim Head Coach
The Los Angeles Kings will approach the trade season with a different bench manager. The Kings have relieved head coach Jim Hiller of his duties and named associate coach D.J. Smith as interim head coach per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. The team has confirmed the change, adding that development coach Matt Greene has been promoted to assistant coach.
This news will end Hiller’s first tenure as an NHL head coach after two years. He was promoted to L.A.’s interim head coach role in relief of Todd McLellan on February 2, 2024. Hiller inherited a roster in the midst of a 3-8-6 skid. He quickly turned that around, setting a 7-4-0 record in his first 11 games that would grow into a 21-12-1 record by the end of the season. That earned Los Angeles a third-place finish in the Pacific Division and a tough matchup with the Edmonton Oilers. The Kings won one game – a 5-to-4 overtime win in Game 2 – but otherwise quickly fell to an Oilers team that pushed to a loss in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Hiller was named the head coach outright in May 2024. He kept the energy high in Los Angeles through the 2024-25 season, and quickly began to bring the beset out of hard-nosed players like Quinton Byfield, Alex Laferriere, and Adrian Kempe. The Kings finished the 2024-25 season with 105 points – their best finish since the 1974-75 season. But, like in 1975, L.A. fell to a first-round playoff exit, again at the hands of an Oilers club that’d go on to the Stanley Cup Finals. Hiller earned criticism for his decisions, and coach’s challenges, through the first-round series but held onto his role headed into the 2025-26 campaign.
But the Kings have struggled to generate the same level of offense this season. They rank 29th in the NHL in goals scored and have struggled to find the depth scoring to make up for a down year from captain Anze Kopitar. The Kings’ struggles to generate this season swelled with top winger Kevin Fiala and middle-six winger Andrei Kuzmenko suffering long-term injuries. Even with the superstar addition of Artemi Panarin, the Kings couldn’t keep their engine firing.
The deciding blow to their momentum came at the hands of, again, the Edmonton Oilers who beat the Kings 8-1 in their second game back from the Olympic break. Chants to “Fire Hiller” rained down throughout the game, and the head coach told reporters post-game that there’s always concern over job security in the coaching world per Zach Dooley on LA Kings Insider.
Even despite a 2-0 win over the Calgary Flames to follow the tough loss, Hiller has still been pointed towards the door. He leaves the Kings with an 8-8-5 record in 21 games since the start of 2026. Los Angeles sits three points outside of a Western Conference Wild Card, tied with the Nashville Predators.
Los Angeles will look towards Smith to turn their year around. He brings a little over four years of NHL head coaching experience, having led the Ottawa Senators from the start of the 2019-20 season to December 2023. He only managed one winning season in his years in Ottawa – notching a 39-35-8 record in the 2022-23 season but totaling a 131-154-32 record outright. The Senators couldn’t break into the postseason under Smith’s reign, with emerging youngsters Tim Stutzle and Brady Tkachuk. Smith was hired to Los Angeles’ bench four days after Hiller’s promotion to the head coach role.
Both Hiller and Smith are proteges of veteran head coach Mike Babcock. Hiller joined Babcock’s staff for his final year with the Detroit Red Wings in 2014-15, overseeing the power-play, then followed him to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2015-16. Smith earned the first NHL coaching role of his career on that year’s Maple Leafs staff, after winning the OHL Championship with the Oshawa Generals in the year prior. Those deep roots and learned skills should keep Hiller in the conversation for an assistant coach role, in the same way that it has led Smith back into a head role.
Meanwhile, two-time Stanley Cup champion and 12-year veteran of the Kings blue-line, Matt Greene, will make his bench debut following this news. He has served a role in Los Angeles’ player development since he retired from his playing career following the 2016-17 season. Greene began with three years in a scouting role and has filled a development coach role over the last five years. He was a bruising, depth defender during his NHL career. Greene served as an alternate captain for eight years with the Kings, and at one World Championship with Team USA.
Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports.
Andrei Kuzmenko Undergoes Meniscus Surgery
Already down a key offensive winger in Kevin Fiala who is out for the season, the Kings are now going to be without another offensive winger for at least a little while. The team announced that Andrei Kuzmenko has undergone successful surgery to repair a torn meniscus and is listed as out week-to-week; he has also been placed on injured reserve. Taking his spot on the active roster is defenseman Angus Booth, who has been recalled from AHL Ontario.
Kuzmenko is in his first full season with Los Angeles after being acquired at the trade deadline last season. A strong finish saw him put up five goals and 12 assists in just 22 games down the stretch before putting up six points in six games in the playoffs. That performance helped keep him around as Los Angeles signed Kuzmenko to a one-year, $4.3MM contract to keep him from testing unrestricted free agency.
Things haven’t gone quite as well for the 30-year-old this season, however. Kuzmenko has been limited to 13 goals and 12 assists through 52 appearances although he still ranks seventh on the team in points with Los Angeles being one of the lowest-scoring teams in the NHL. Now, with him and Fiala out of the lineup, there will be even more pressure on Artemi Panarin in the short term to pick up the slack while GM Ken Holland might be more motivated to try to seek out some scoring help over the coming days as well. Projected to have more than $15MM in cap room on deadline day, per PuckPedia, Los Angeles has plenty of room to add to its roster.
As for Booth, this is his first career NHL recall. The 21-year-old was a fourth-round pick by the Kings in 2022, going 116th overall out of the QMJHL. In his second professional season, Booth has played exclusively with the Reign and has a goal and nine assists in 42 games. With Drew Doughty exiting Thursday’s game with a lower-body injury, it appears that Booth will serve as the seventh defender until the veteran is able to return.
Kings’ Andrei Kuzmenko Out With Injury
The Los Angeles Kings will be without forward Andrei Kuzmenko in Thursday’s game against the Edmonton Oilers, head coach Jim Hiller told reporters including Dennis Bernstein of The Fourth Period. Kuzmenko will aim to work his way back to full health before the Kings take on the Calgary Flames on Saturday.
Kuzmenko did not play in the third period of Los Angeles’ February 5th match against Vegas, though he did not appear to sustain a clear injury. He played a full game, and even posted two assists, in the Kings’ return from the Olympic break on Wednesday.
The Russian winger has found a nice scoring touch as of late. Wednesday’s game brought him to four points in his last three games, though Los Angeles would go on to lose all three. That scoring continued a strong new-year for Kuzmenko, who now has 13 points in 19 games since the calendar turned over. He is up to 13 goals and 25 points in 52 games this season, strong enough scoring to earn Kuzmenko upwards of 20 minutes a night through points of this season. His absence will leave the Kings searching for another playmaker, now without wingers Kuzmenko and Kevin Fiala, who sustained multiple fractures in his left leg during the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Los Angeles will tap extra forward Taylor Ward to fill Kuzmenko’s hole in the lineup. Ward has scored four points in 15 NHL games this season. He has also notched 12 goals and 21 points in 32 games with the AHL’s Ontario Reign, matching his goal-total and six points shy of his point-total from 66 AHL games last season. Ward should fill a bottom-line role, while Los Angeles looks towards recent star addition Artemi Panarin to replace the scoring left vacant by Kuzmenko and Fiala. Panarin recorded two assists in his Kings debut on Wednesday, and led the New York Rangers in scoring with 57 points in 52 games prior to his trade.
Kings Activate Mikey Anderson And Alex Turcotte
On top of debuting Artemi Panarin, the Kings welcomed back a pair of players for their game tonight against Vegas. The team announced (Twitter link) that defenseman Mikey Anderson and forward Alex Turcotte have been activated off injured reserve. After recently moving Kevin Fiala to IR, they had two open roster spots so no other corresponding moves needed to be made.
Anderson is having a quiet year offensively (many are on the Kings, who sit 31st in goals scored), but he continues to hold down a top-four shutdown role. The 26-year-old has two goals and seven assists in 54 games this season but is second on the team in blocks with 77. Anderson is also averaging more than 20 minutes per game for the sixth straight season.
Anderson was sidelined with an upper-body injury at the beginning of the month against Carolina. However, thanks to the Olympic break, he ultimately only missed two games.
Turcotte’s absence was a little longer as he missed an extra week. The 24-year-old has been a regular on the fourth line in Los Angeles this season but has also seen his production go in the wrong direction. After picking up a career-high 25 points in 68 games in 2024-25, he has been limited to just three goals and nine assists in 49 outings this season. However, he’s winning nearly 56% of his faceoffs, which is allowing him to contribute even with the drop in production.
Kings No Longer Interested In Patrik Laine
- After the injury to winger Kevin Fiala in the Olympics, the Los Angeles Kings have a near-drastic need for a scoring winger if they have any hopes of reaching the playoffs this year. One player that has been mildly linked to Los Angeles in the last few days is Montreal Canadiens winger Patrik Laine, though that no longer appears to be in the cards. According to Dennis Bernstein of The Fourth Period, the Kings checked in on Laine over the last few days, but no longer believe there’s a fit between the two. Bernstein didn’t clarify if the Kings were turned off by the price, Laine’s injury history, a combination of the two, or something else entirely.
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Kings Recall Kirill Kirsanov, Erik Portillo
Feb. 24: Kirsanov and Portillo were quietly returned to Ontario back on Friday, but the team announced they’ve been recalled again today. With Doughty and Kuemper taking home silver medals, they might be getting tomorrow off against the Golden Knights before returning to the lineup. As such, Kirsanov and Portillo would be needed as a healthy extra and a backup goalie, respectively.
Feb. 19: The Kings announced they’ve recalled defenseman Kirill Kirsanov and goaltender Erik Portillo from AHL Ontario. Netminder Pheonix Copley was returned to Ontario after being recalled yesterday in the corresponding move.
Kirsanov gets a look in an NHL practice today while Drew Doughty is still in Italy representing Team Canada at the Olympics. The 23-year-old is in the first season of his entry-level contract, waiting four years after L.A. drafted him in the third round in 2021 to come over from his native Russia. While the 6’2″ lefty struggled to hold down a regular role in the KHL, he’s looked the part so far in Ontario. A stable two-way presence, he’s put up four goals and 11 points with a +8 rating in 47 games.
Portillo, who’s essentially usurped Copley as the No. 3 goalie on the Kings’ depth chart, will get his turn in practice today with Darcy Kuemper absent. After a tough showing last year, the 25-year-old has squarely outperformed Copley in the minors this season and has a .905 SV% and 2.45 GAA in 19 games. That’s been good for a 13-3-1 record and one shutout behind one of the AHL’s best offensive clubs.
Kings Looking For Middle-Six Winger
The Kings are looking to add a middle-six scoring winger before the March 6 trade deadline in the wake of Kevin Fiala‘s season-ending leg injury, The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta said on “Daily Faceoff Live” yesterday.
A lack of offense has been the only thing holding Los Angeles out of a playoff spot this season. They’ll come out of the break trailing the Ducks by three points for the second wild-card spot in the West without any games in hand. That’s despite owning the league’s sixth-best defense at 2.77 GA/GP. The Kings’ shot generation numbers aren’t awful, checking in at 19th in the league at 27.6 per game. Their team shooting percentage is down at 9.2%, though, only ahead of the Flames’ and Devils’ 8.6% mark. That poor shooting percentage is, to some degree, a byproduct of poor shot selection and a failure to generate high-danger chances. L.A. creates 2.31 expected goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, 25th in the league, per MoneyPuck.
General manager Ken Holland has clearly identified their scoring problem as a sore spot. He already moved to acquire the top forward target on the market in Artemi Panarin before the Olympic roster freeze, inking him to a two-year extension for good measure. But with Fiala now unavailable for the stretch run and any potential playoff series, they’re essentially back to square one. Fiala was the team’s second-leading goal-scorer (18) and point-getter (40) and was essentially their only stable source of top-six offense this season outside of Adrian Kempe.
Getting Panarin with an extension certainly lowers the urgency to sell the farm further to make the postseason this year, with two more tries with him under contract. Nonetheless, missing the playoff picture entirely isn’t what anyone envisioned for captain Anže Kopitar‘s final NHL season, and it would be an abject disappointment in a weak Pacific Division following four straight postseason berths.
Nonetheless, with close to a 50-50 shot at making the cut, it’s hard to justify the Kings paying the acquisition cost of acquiring another Panarin-type talent. They’re better off paying standard rental prices for a pending UFA to see if they can catch lightning in a bottle – they did so with Andrei Kuzmenko last year, after all – to help them get their offense to at least a passable postseason level.
There are plenty of options out there. Jeff Skinner can be had for free after having his contract terminated with the Sharks. The market for Canucks power winger Evander Kane has been sluggish, so he could easily be picked up for a mid-to-late-round pick. Other rental options include the Predators’ Michael Bunting, the Maple Leafs’ Bobby McMann, and the Canadiens’ Patrik Laine, although Toronto appears to be setting a high price tag that could knock L.A. out of those conversations.
Latest On Mikey Anderson
Los Angeles Kings defenseman Mikey Anderson told reporters, including Zach Dooley, Manager of Editorial Content for the team, that he is optimistic to return next game post-break, against Vegas on February 25.
The 26-year-old was able to skate over the break and is on the right track. Anderson left early against Carolina on February 1 with an apparent finger injury, unable to go in the Kings’ last two games before the Olympics. Clearly missing their trusty shutdown sidekick of Drew Doughty, the Kings lost both, and were outscored 8-3. Anderson was placed on injured reserve February 8.
Set to host Vegas in six days, the game will be full of excitement as Artemi Panarin is expected to make his long awaited Kings debut, although with the damper of missing Kevin Fiala after his devastating injury in Milan. Hopefully with Anderson back in the mix, Los Angeles will work on catching Anaheim for the second Wild Card spot and push for the playoffs.
Kings Recall Pheonix Copley, Place Kevin Fiala On IR
Earlier today, the Los Angeles Kings announced that they’ve recalled netminder Pheonix Copley from the AHL’s Ontario Reign. Additionally, the Kings have placed forward Kevin Fiala on the injured reserve, as expected.
Copley has likely been brought on as a practice player before Los Angeles returns to action next week. Darcy Kuemper, the Kings’ typical starter, is rostered on Team Canada for the Olympics, and they’ve already clinched a spot in the Bronze Medal game at the very least.
Despite a brief stint with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Copley has been with Los Angeles for the past four years. Still, he’s spent much of the past two years with AHL Ontario. In 24 games for the Reign this season, Copley has managed a 13-11-0 record with a .890 SV% and 2.95 GAA.
Meanwhile, Fiala’s placement on the injured reserve was a formality. Playing on Team Switzerland in the Olympics, Fiala infamously suffered multiple leg fractures in a game against Canada.
The fractures required nearly immediate surgery, which has prematurely ended Fiala’s 2025-26 campaign. Los Angeles could have placed Fiala on long-term injured reserve, but their sufficient cap space made that unnecessary.
Fiala’s absence from the Kings’ lineup the rest of the way should undoubtedly alter Los Angeles’ approach leading up to the trade deadline. Yes, the team already acquired high-scoring winger Artemi Panarin before the Olympics, though that was with Fiala healthy. Given the drastic need for goal-scoring help in Los Angeles, it’s likely they’ll seek to acquire some additional reinforcements.