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Kyle Burroughs

Kings Recall Samuel Helenius, Remove Kyle Burroughs From Non-Roster

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The Los Angeles Kings are adding some depth to their lineup before their upcoming five-game road trip starting on January 10th. The organization announced they’ve recalled forward Samuel Helenius from their AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign, and removed defenseman Kyle Burroughs from the non-roster designation.

As a waiver-exempt player, Helenius has been frequently called up and utilized by the Kings this season. While he has not been a significant contributor in terms of offensive production—recording 13 goals and 37 points in 150 AHL games—he makes up for his lack of scoring with his physical style of play.

Despite being 12th amongst forwards in games played and last in average time on ice, Helenius is second on the Kings in hits with 70. Los Angeles has been one of the more rugged and physical teams for more than a decade and Helenius is helping preserve that image.

Burroughs returns to the active roster after missing the last few days due to the birth of his child. He’s in the second year of a three-year, $3.3MM contract originally signed with the San Jose Sharks before being traded to the Kings last summer.

He’s suited up in 20 games for Los Angeles this year as a depth defenseman and has tallied two assists overall. Unfortunately, as the team’s eighth defenseman on the active roster, Burroughs’ days in the NHL are likely numbered with Drew Doughty nearing a return.

Kings Announce Four Roster Moves

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The Kings were busy leading into their game against Tampa Bay today.  The team announced that they’ve activated winger Trevor Moore and center Trevor Lewis off injured reserve.  To make room on the roster, winger Andre Lee was assigned to AHL Ontario while defenseman Kyle Burroughs was moved to non-roster status.

Moore was moved to IR last weekend but last played on December 12th and had been sidelined with an upper-body injury since then.  The 29-year-old had a career year last season with 31 goals and 26 assists in 82 games and while he hasn’t produced at quite the same level this year, he’s still doing well with six goals and a dozen helpers in 28 outings while logging a little over 17 minutes a night.

As for Lewis, he sustained a lower-body injury on the final day of November and has been out since then.  He’s being activated for his 1,000th career game tonight.  Lewis has seven points in 25 games so far this season while chipping in with 46 hits and a 51% success rate at the faceoff dot, continuing to have success in the fourth-line role he has held for the bulk of his career.

Lee is the roster casualty up front to bring Moore and Lewis back onto the roster.  The 24-year-old has split the season between the Kings and Reign, getting his first taste of NHL playing time along the way.  Lee has played in 19 games with Los Angeles, primarily on the fourth line.  In those outings, he has a goal and two assists along with 36 hits in just over nine minutes a night.  In Ontario, he has suited up four time, collecting a goal and an assist.

Burroughs, meanwhile, is in his first season with the Kings after signing a two-year, $2.2MM deal with them last summer.  Playing time hasn’t been the easiest to come by, however, as he has been limited to just 20 games thus far out of 37.  The 29-year-old has a pair of assists, 31 hits, and 24 penalty minutes but is playing just 8:39 per game, well below his career average of 15:57 per game.  He is away from the team following the birth of his child.

Kings, Sharks Swap Kyle Burroughs, Carl Grundström

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The Kings have acquired right-shot defenseman Kyle Burroughs from the Sharks in exchange for the signing rights to RFA winger Carl Grundström, the team announced Thursday.

Burroughs, 28, is coming off a difficult year in which he played a role he was never meant for. After breaking into the league as a fringe bottom-pairing presence with the Canucks in 2021, he landed a three-year, $3.3MM commitment from San Jose on the open market last summer.

After the Sharks traded away reigning Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson to the Penguins later in the summer, it was clear there would be a domino effect on the rest of their defense corps. Many players were projected to be overtaxed while compensating for Karlsson’s loss on a team that was squarely and correctly projected to be a lottery contender. Perhaps no one was overworked more than Burroughs, who was thrust into top-four duties alongside Mario Ferraro.

At first glance, it went about as well as one would expect. Averaging north of 19 minutes per game, Burroughs managed two goals and six assists for eight points in 73 games while posting a -42 rating, worst in the league among defensemen. A more detailed look at his stats does yield some promising signs, though. His pairing with Ferraro controlled 48.1% of expected goals when deployed together, the best among any Sharks pairing with more than 100 minutes played this season. He also met expectations physically, leading the Sharks with 233 hits (fourth in the NHL) and placing second in blocks with 134.

But with younger righties Ty Emberson and Henry Thrun deserving of more minutes next season, alongside an expected UFA addition next week, Burroughs was on the cusp of being the odd man out on the San Jose blue line. While obviously not equipped for top-four minutes long-term, the 2013 seventh-round pick does carry signs that he can be effective in an everyday bottom-pairing role.

In Los Angeles, he’ll fight for a third-pairing role alongside Andreas Englund, who would immediately become one of the most fearsome, hardest-hitting duos in the league. Englund played much less than Burroughs on a nightly basis last season, averaging 13:13 per game, but still managed to finish inside the top 20 in hits league-wide. The Kings do have a pair of up-and-coming righties in Jordan Spence and 2021 eighth-overall pick Brandt Clarke, but both (especially the latter) are candidates to slide into second-pairing duties with Matt Roy likely heading elsewhere in free agency.

While parting with Burroughs, the Sharks pick up some checking forward depth in Grundström. The 26-year-old is now on his third NHL team after being drafted by the Maple Leafs in 2016 but being moved to the Kings before making his NHL debut three years later. They have three days to re-sign him or issue him a qualifying offer to retain his signing rights as an RFA this summer.

Injuries limited Grundström to 50 games last year, in which he scored eight goals and 12 points in fourth-line minutes (10:56 per game). The Swede has had decent possession metrics in SoCal and is also a frequent hitter with a good shot when he gets the chance. He’ll look to carry that solid energy play up north to the Bay, where he joins a bottom-six forward group that’s already seen two new names added this summer in Ty Dellandrea and Barclay Goodrow.

The Sharks can expect a new deal for Grundström to come in at around $1.5MM for a one-year term, Evolving Hockey projects. With over $30MM in projected cap space next season, though, the prospective $400K increase on Burroughs is nearly meaningless.

Burroughs remains under contract for two more seasons in Los Angeles. He can hit the UFA market again in 2026.

Pacific Injury Notes: Soucy, Hoglander, Gagner, Holloway, Burroughs

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In a report from Thomas Drance of The Athletic, the Vancouver Canucks will have to wait a bit longer for the return of Carson Soucy. Making his way back from a fractured leg, Soucy had just recently returned to skating a little over a week ago. In the same report, Drance also points out that forward Nils Hoglander will be a game-time decision for the team’s game tonight against the Ottawa Senators.

With an injury to his knee, foot, and leg all within his first three months as a member of the Canucks organization, Soucy’s tenure with the team has already been plagued by injuries. Of the 36 games played by Vancouver so far this season, Soucy has only suited up in 13 of those, only being available for 36% of the team’s games up to this point. When Soucy eventually returns to the lineup, assuming he can stay clear of injuries for the remainder of the season, the Canucks will own one of the most well-rounded defensive cores across the league.

In the case of Hoglander, it is unclear by the reporting if he is dealing with a nagging injury, or if the Canucks are debating on carrying him as an extra forward tonight. Although he suited up in the team’s most recent game against the Philadelphia Flyers, recent reports indicated that Hoglander had been moved off the second line and recently practiced as an extra forward.

Other injury notes:

  • With forward Dylan Holloway ready to return from his knee injury suffered in mid-November, Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic expects both he and forward Sam Gagner to be in the lineup this weekend for the Edmonton Oilers. Although Edmonton has recovered fairly well since the organization’s horrid start to the regular season, the bottom half of their forward core has still been a significant issue across the board. Gagner has been a solid addition in that department in now his third stint with the Oilers, and the reintroduction of Holloway’s physical play will certainly make Edmonton harder to play against each night.
  • Having missed the team’s most recent game on New Year’s Eve, San Jose Sharks defenseman, Kyle Burroughs confirms he will be back in the lineup tonight as the Sharks take on the Detroit Red Wings (X Link). Going through a difficult season similar to the rest of his teammates, Burroughs has tallied four assists in 35 games this year, carrying a -22 rating into tonight’s action.

San Jose Sharks To Sign Kyle Burroughs

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The San Jose Sharks are signing UFA defenseman Kyle Burroughs to a three-year deal worth $1.1MM per season, says CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal.

Set to turn 28 later this month, Burroughs secures a solid pay raise from the league-minimum $750k cap hit he played 2022-23 on. While he has just 95 career NHL games to his name, Burroughs’ defensive prowess, and physicality impressed during his time with the Canucks.

The Sharks aren’t looking to compete for Stanley Cups anytime soon, but need to add some value to their blueline and Burroughs accomplishes exactly that.

He’ll make the Sharks more difficult to play against, an important quality for a team that could end up losing quite a few games, and could have value later down the line as a flip-able trade asset if he gets more NHL games under his belt and earns an increased role under head coach David Quinn.

A three-year term for Burroughs is certainly a risk, but if he can continue the upward trajectory of recent seasons he could quickly make his $1.1MM cap hit look like a steal.

West Notes: Coyotes, Canucks Free Agents, Pearson, Zhigalov

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The Coyotes enter next week’s draft loaded with picks, to put it lightly.  The team currently has nine second-round selections and nine third-rounders over the next three years.  Accordingly, Chris Johnston reports in TSN’s latest Insider Trading segment (video link) that Arizona is looking to deal from some of that future draft capital.  Instead of being a dumping ground for bad contracts as they have been in recent years, it appears as if their focus has turned to trying to acquire better pieces who could be moved because the other team is forced into making a move to get into compliance.  Accordingly, instead of receiving picks for taking on the player the other team wants to get rid of as they’ve done several times before, they’re flipping that plan around.

Elsewhere in the West:

  • With Ethan Bear needing shoulder surgery, it is no longer a guarantee that the Canucks will tender the blueliner a qualifying offer next week, reports CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal (Twitter link). Bear is owed a $2.3MM qualifier but is set to miss at least the first couple of months of the season.  With cap space still at somewhat of a premium for Vancouver, that might be too high of a price tag for their liking.  Meanwhile, Dhaliwal adds that the Canucks are working on a new contract for pending UFA defenseman Noah Juulsen and have reached out with an offer to pending UFA rearguard Kyle Burroughs.  As for goalie Collin Delia, the door isn’t closed on a return but the odds of him re-signing appear to be dropping.
  • Also from Dhaliwal (Twitter link), he recently updated Tanner Pearson’s situation. The winger has now undergone seven surgeries as a result of his wrist injury and it remains to be seen if he’ll be able to return to the ice.  The NHLPA indicated back in January that they were looking into how Pearson’s injury was handled and the continued uncertainty can’t be helping things.  Pearson has one year left on his deal which carries a $3.25MM AAV.  At this point, it looks like he’ll at least be starting next season on LTIR.
  • Avalanche prospect Ivan Zhigalov is heading home next season as Yunost Minsk in Belarus announced that they’ve signed the netminder to a one-year contract. The 20-year-old was the final pick in the draft last June with the 225th selection and spent this past season with OHL Kingston, posting a save percentage of .889 with a 3.59 GAA in 45 games.  Since Zhigalov was selected out of major junior, Colorado only holds his NHL rights through next season.

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