Russell Morgan 
4. Alex Turcotte – 21 y/o – F – 2019 Round 1 #5 overall
Previous ranking: 3
I’m not giving up on Alex Turcotte. And neither should Kings fans. Talk about a player with bad injury luck, which, unfortunately, has been a right of passage for some other Kings prospects. But when he has been healthy, he’s produced.
The main problem for Turcotte is comparison. Players taken after Alex, like Moritz Seider, Trevor Zegras, and Cole Caufield, have already found success in the National Hockey League. At the same time, Kings fans can only wait for LA’s fifth overall pick from 2019 to make his impact in the league. But if patience is shown, the reward of a legit top-six forward is still a possibility.
Scott Wheeler, The Athletic
“Turcotte, when healthy, plays a tenacious, playmaking game built around a consistent effort level and a strong sense for leveraging timing and spacing to his advantage.”
JFresh Hockey’s Prospect Card
It was another up-and-down hockey season for Turcotte during the 2021-22 campaign. After a promising start with the Ontario Reign producing ten points in 18 games, the Illinois native was called up to the Kings to make his NHL debut on December 28 against the Vegas Golden Knights. Turcotte would go on to play in eight games with the Kings. While he didn’t record a point in his stint with LA, he showed some flash of a solid two-way game.
After he was assigned back to the Reign is when he started to thrive. Alex recorded eight points in his next eight games with Ontario until his bad injury luck hit him again. In a game against Stockton, Turcotte took a brutal hit along the boards resulting in a boarding penalty that would force him to miss a few weeks. When he eventually made his return just in time for the Calder Cup Playoffs, he once again was hit by a cheap shot in Game 1 against the Colorado Eagles.
Andreas Englund has been suspended for one game for this illegal check to the head of Alex Turcotte. #Reign pic.twitter.com/2JLyK40MoH
— Eric (@kingsgifs2) May 13, 2022
The hit gave Turcotte a concussion and ultimately led to him missing all of the summer activities other LA prospects participated in. You start to feel for the player who just wants to play hockey. It’s been one injury after another, all by no fault of his own. With each injury he’s been forced to miss time, he’s worked hard to return and still be a productive player. Now that he’s skating with the Reign in a non-contact form, we hope to see Turcotte make his 2022-23 season debut soon.