What the Los Angeles Kings are thankful for

In the 2020 NHL Draft, the Kings selected forward Quinton Byfield as the second overall selection in the draft, and although he made his NHL debut a year later, Los Angeles demonstrated tremendous patience with Byfield’s development. 

From 2020-23, Byfield played in a total of 99 games for the Kings, scoring eight goals and 33 points over that stretch.

Now, and still only 21 years old, Byfield is nearly a point-per-game player, scoring eight goals and 23 points in 27 games, nearly doubling his career totals in about a third of the number of games. 

Aside from Byfield, Los Angeles is using a similar method with Arthur Kaliyev, Jordan Spence and Brandt Clarke, hoping to make the most out of every one of their draft selections.

What would the Kings be even more thankful for?

For Father Time to stay away

As previously mentioned, the Kings are beginning to reap the benefits of many solid draft choices, and demonstrating the patience required to build a winning team through the draft. However, even all these years later, the team still primarily beats to the drum of Kopitar and Doughty.

Even though both franchise icons are in their mid-to-late 30s, Kopitar continues to lead the team in scoring, and Doughty leads all defensemen in scoring within the organization. 

Unfortunately, for the most part throughout the league and sports in general, Father Time remains undefeated and will ultimately claim Kopitar and Doughty as its victims.

When these two future Hall of Famers decide to call it quits, given their draft and prospect capital accrued over the last several years, Los Angeles should be pretty well set up for the future of the organization. Nevertheless, they would undoubtedly benefit from having these two as long as possible.

What should be on the Kings holiday wish list?

A potential coaching change

During the Todd McLellan era of Kings history over the last five seasons, Los Angeles has only made the playoffs, losing in the first round each time. This season, with the team currently fifth in goals for per game, and the best team in goals against per game, this Kings team is the most well set up to get the job done this spring.

Reasonably assuming that Los Angeles will eventually make the playoffs for the third time in a row this spring if they are unable to make it out of the first round, there should be serious questions raised about the future of McLellan within the organization.

In 15 seasons spent as a head coach in the National Hockey League before this year, McLellan has coached his team to the playoffs in nine of those seasons, making it as far as the Western Conference Final twice with the San Jose Sharks back in 2010 and 2011. 

This season, if they are going to make it to the Stanley Cup, they will most likely have to go through the defending Champions, the Vegas Golden Knights.