LA Kings roster starting to take shape

After a busy beginning to the Free Agency period, the LA Kings are a few steps closer to completing their roster for the 2023-24 NHL season.

There have been eight signings in total from the time Free Agency started. Jaret Anderson-Dolan was the lone re-signing, while the other seven include players that could see the bulk of their season in the AHL. For now, let’s take a look at what the NHL roster looks like (per Cap Friendly):

That list is 22 names long (the maximum is 23), and the Kings are 751k over the salary cap. David Rittich hasn’t played in the AHL since the 2017-18 season, but I’m hard-pressed to believe the Kings will carry three goaltenders. If he is sent to Ontario, that brings LA under the cap, but with just 21 skaters.

There are still questions to be answered between now and the start of the season; we can hypothesize what some of the training camp battles will be.

Forwards

I think that group above is largely going to be what we see. How Todd McLellan decides to shuffle the lines will be noteworthy, but that personnel should be it for the most part. In my opinion, the fourth line is where the battles will be.

It’s nice that Trevor Lewis is back with the LA Kings, though I don’t know how necessary it was. While he’s still a fine defensive forward, he wasn’t overly impactful anywhere else.

With young forwards knocking on the door, I’m not sure I understood this one.

The other winger on Blake Lizotte‘s line is Carl Grundstrom. After earning himself a two-year, $2.6M deal before last season, Grundstrom chipped in 12 goals and brought a physical style of play to the team, finishing 29th among forwards in hits/60 (minimum 20 games played).

I am not ruling out the possibility that he could be traded. If so, it would be more to do with the fact he makes over $1 million (and that the team decided to bring Lewis back into the fold). The money saved to open up a spot for a younger player wouldn’t be significant, but when you’re this close to the cap, every little bit counts. It would be nice to get a longer look at a Samuel Fagemo or perhaps (a healthy) Alex Turcotte on the fourth line.

Fagemo has back-to-back seasons of at least 23 goals and has tallied 50 in 119 AHL games over the past two seasons. When Turcotte is healthy, he brings a motor that would fit nicely next to Lizotte and is still a talented player. He’s tallied 53 points in 91 career AHL games.

I am glad Anderson-Dolan is back. He’s the perfect 13th forward for a coach to have. I don’t know if he’s a regular NHL player, but I feel confident spotting him in at any position on any line when needed.

Defensemen

Like the forwards, the battle here will likely be on the bottom pair. I can’t imagine there will be changes in the top four, though it’s a long summer.

After the signing of Andreas Englund to a two-year, $2 million deal, he will be in the mix for the bottom group, including fellow left-shot defenseman Tobias Bjornfot and top prospects Brandt Clarke and Jordan Spence.

This shouldn’t be much of a discussion, but it seems we’re heading down that road. If the team is interested in playing their best players, the bottom pair will be Clarke and Spence, and that would be the end of it. However, with both of them being right-handed, inexperienced prospects, plus the signing of Englund, the tea leaves suggest we’ll see a left-right duo.

If that’s the case, I can’t say I have a strong preference for Clarke or Spence. I don’t think Spence has anything left to prove in Ontario, and he’s ready for an NHL shot. Clarke showed well in his nine-game stint last season, but we’ve seen the Kings play things slow with their prospects, and he could start in the AHL.

That would mean the Kings would be between Englund and Bjornfot for the left side of the third pair. If we’re being honest, neither is very inspiring.

In 2022-23, Englund played 47 games between Colorado and Chicago. The bulk of which was with the Avalanche. In those 36 games, he was partnered with Brad Hunt, and the two performed well together, posting a 57.5% CF and 53.0% xG in just under 124 minutes. For his career, the 6’3″ Englund has been a defensive defenseman who spends plenty of time in the penalty box.

You can see the logic. A big, tough, imposing defensive-defenseman to pair with one of the young, skilled right-shot defensemen prospects. It’s an odd deal to me, but clearly, the Kings see something in Englund to give him a multi-year deal.

Then there’s Tobias Bjornfot. I’ve often opined that we just don’t know what Bjornfot is. Is he a defenseman who can create offense? Is he a steady, stay-at-home defensive defenseman? As a member of the LA Kings, he hasn’t shown either at the NHL level in his career:

He’s been a negative in both the offensive and defensive zones in his 116 NHL games. We can probably safely say what he is not, which is an offensive threat. In those 116 games, he has just 15 points. In 50 AHL games last season, Bjornfot had five goals and 12 points. What’s troubling, though, is his defensive metrics have been equally bad.

At this stage, I don’t see Bjornfot as anything more than a depth defenseman, whether as a seventh defenseman or in the AHL. At just 22 years old, there’s still the opportunity to grow, but time is running out for the 2019 first-round pick.

Again, if it were up to me, I’d roll with the rookies on the bottom pair, keep Englund as my seventh defenseman (salary cap permitting), and give Bjornfot heavy minutes in Ontario.

Goaltending

Right now, I don’t think there’s a battle in making the NHL roster. This should be Cam Talbot and Pheonix Copley, with David Rittich joining Erik Portillo in the AHL.

Given his time with the Kings last season, Copley could have the inside track on the 1A part of the job. He went 24-6-4 with a .903 save percentage and was among the top 30 NHL goalies in Evolving Hockey’s GSAx metric. He wasn’t great, but he wasn’t bad. That could be good enough to get most of the starts in Los Angeles.

Talbot is the lead candidate for the backup role and to push Copley, but he will have to play much better than he has in recent years. While he finished last season with a .898 save percentage, each of the prior two seasons was strong at .911 and .915, respectively. However, his underlying numbers are less impressive as in the past three seasons combined; he has the seventh-worst GSAx in the NHL (per Evolving Hockey).

But there is an optimistic case to make. In the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, Talbot was on a Minnesota Wild team that was first and second in High Danger Chances Allowed per 60 (HDCA/60) per Natural Stat Trick at 5-on-5. In 2022-23, the Ottawa Senators were middle of the pack in that statistic. If we look at his player card, he’s excellent against low-danger chances, which fit perfectly in Minnesota’s stingy defensive system in those years.

The LA Kings allowed the seventh-fewest high-danger chances last season. There could definitely be a fit here systematically with Talbot in LA.

While the salary cap could ultimately decide some situations, and it’s possible the LA Kings don’t carry a full complement of players on some nights, this is largely what the roster could look like come October.

(Main Photo Credit: Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)