LOS ANGELES — Few teams were in a better place four years ago than the Los Angeles Kings.
It had been a lean few years — three seasons without a playoff berth — but the Kings clinched a spot in the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs four years ago Sunday. A couple of weeks later, they left Edmonton with a 3-2 series lead and came home for Game 6 against the Oilers.
Los Angeles had found a solid group of younger players to help Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty, Dustin Brown and Jonathan Quick — the core four of the 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup champions — return to relevance. Even more importantly, the Kings had arguably the best collection of prospects in the sport. The Athletic in Feb. 2022.
The bridge from the Cup champs to the next contender was built. Los Angeles had the opportunity to be one of the most successful franchises in the 2020s. It was all right there.
And then … it wasn’t.
The Kings will try to extend their season Sunday afternoon at Crypto.com Arena, but the Colorado Avalanche have built a 3-0 series lead. The Avs could complete the sweep in a series that has featured plenty of textbook checking and defensive play from the Kings, but just four goals and two that weren’t desperation 6-on-4 tallies.
What has transpired over the past five seasons for the Kings is a cautionary tale for many NHL teams. Ready to move on from the franchise legends who carried you to new heights? Ready to start a rebuilding process? Ready to begin the climb back after said rebuilding process?
Study what the Kings have done. Analyze the missteps to determine what was a bad process, bad results, or just bad luck.
Los Angeles did not win Game 6 in 2022. Or Game 7. That was Brown’s last game before retirement.
Quick began the next year with the club but was traded before the deadline. If the Avs win Sunday, it will be Kopitar’s last NHL game.
Los Angeles has made the playoffs for five consecutive seasons. That is not an insignificant accomplishment. But the Kings are one loss from five straight first-round exits. They have won just five playoff games (5-17) since leaving Edmonton after a Game 5 overtime win in May 2022.
A bridge that fell apart
The problem is the Kings never took the next step. They have plateaued in the mushy middle of the NHL — the worst place to be for long-term designs of winning a Stanley Cup. Four straight first-round losses to the Oilers, but even if the Kings had won one of those series, none of those teams were considered serious contenders.
What happened? A lot has gone wrong, but in the simplest terms … that No. 1 group of prospects didn’t pan out.
Two of the Kings’ top 20 prospects from Feb. 2021 have played in this series against Colorado — Quenton Byfield and Mikey Anderson. Byfield and Alex Turcotte were once two of the very best prospects in the sport, and Kings fans envisioned a Byfield-Turcotte-Kopitar center depth chart that would terrorize teams.
Byfield is a really good NHL player and young enough to maybe still become a great one. Turcotte had major injuries and hasn’t become more than a fourth-line center. Guys like Arthur Kaliyev, Tyler Madden and Akil Thomas did not develop as planned.
What’s worse is the names on that list who aren’t playing for the Kings: Brock Faber, Gabe Vilardi, Jordan Spence and Sean Durzi. Kevin Fiala is a good NHL player, and the Kings miss him in this series after he was hurt at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
He is not a franchise cornerstone player. Faber, who was traded to Minnesota along with a first-round pick for Fiala, has become one for the Wild. Pierre-Luc Dubois was a disaster in Los Angeles, and the trade to get him from Winnipeg, which included Vilardi at the front of a huge package of assets, was another large misstep.
This Kings team is definitely worse than the past four. They won just 22 games in regulation — only the 32nd-place Vancouver Canucks won fewer. They extended the playoff streak only by the grace of the NHL’s point system and 20 overtime losses.
If the Kings do not win four straight games, this will be the 12th consecutive season without a playoff series win. The last time it happened, Brown went to retrieve the Stanley Cup from Gary Bettman for the second time in 2014.
Where do the Kings go from here?
Kopitar will be tough to replace for myriad reasons. Fiala and Adrian Kempe will be 30 next year. Artemi Panarin is here and signed for two more years. He’ll be 35 next year. Doughty will be 37.
Byfield, Anderson, Brandt Clarke, and Alex Laferriere are all quality NHL players … who would be great complementary core pieces to the 2-3 superstar level players needed to be a true Cup contender.
The days of Doughty and Panarin being those players is over. The Kings’ prospect pool .
Will the Kings be able to lure any stars in the near future? How would they build a trade package big enough to deal for one?
Would a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series in 12 years consider a second rebuilding process? That is venturing into Buffalo and Edmonton pre-Connor McDavid territory.
Should the Kings have cashed in Kopitar or Doughty during the rebuilding process? That’s tough to say — they did the thing every franchise with aging stars wants to do.
They built the bridge. It just fell apart before they could cross it. And now they’re left with more questions than answers, and possibly needing yet another bridge.
The Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals are in similar spots now. The Avalanche will be there some day too.
Some of what went wrong for the Kings is obvious. A lot of it is tougher to diagnose, but other NHL teams should absolutely try to so they know which types of mistakes to avoid in the future.
