LA Kings Free Agent Target: Oliver Kylington

We’re just under a week away from Unrestricted Free Agents (UFA) being able to ink deals and the LA Kings have a few holes to fill. One of those holes remains on the left side of the defense.

Technically, if you look at the LA roster, there isn’t a physical hole on left D with Mikey Anderson, Vladislav Gavrikov, and Andreas Englund all under contract for the 2024-25 season. However, if the LA Kings fancy them a serious organization looking to make a playoff run, that group needs a serious upgrade. Somehow, Englund played a career-high 82 games last season. If Rob Blake and co. don’t see the left side of the defense as a weakness, there’s a pretty big organizational problem.

Much of the talk this offseason has been about the Kings changing their style to add more offense. This has led to some really nervous people in LA, including Head Coach Jim Hiller, needing to clarify that they cannot allow more goals than they score. Well, duh.

But it doesn’t have to be one or the other. It isn’t: have a good offense OR a good defense. Perhaps the overly rigid structure we’ve seen in LA for so long has us all missing the point that you can, in fact, do both.

And it doesn’t take drastic changes. Yes, it’d help by playing a more modern style and not living in the trap world, but it also means having defensemen who can skate and transport pucks. This is where I come back to the construction of the defense, particularly the left side, as being a problem. To be clear, defensemen don’t need to be among your top point producers, but they do need to be able to help get pucks out of your own zone. The cleaner you get out of your defensive zone the easier life is transitioning to offense, it’s not a radical concept.

LA’s current philosophy of wanting a big, immobile, defensive defenseman next to an offensive-minded defenseman is antiquated. Sure, if you want a player who is more responsible while his partner takes some more risks, that makes sense. Anderson is a perfect example of this. He’ll never be known as an offensive defenseman, but he’s a good skater and is capable with the puck on his stick. Yet as a responsible, defensive-first defenseman, it allows Doughty to jump in the play a bit more freely. But the redundancy of a completely defensive-minded middle pair in Gavrikov and Matt Roy along with Englund on the third pairing is holding back an LA team that has some forwards who can get up and go.

Until the organization comes to grips with this, they’re going to struggle to go deep in playoffs – dare I say get out of the first round.

Good news! There are options available to the LA Kings to upgrade their LD and they may not need to spend big in free agency to do so.

27-year-old Oliver Kylington has spent his entire career with the Calgary Flames. A 2015 second-round pick, Kylington has been an under-the-radar defenseman in Calgary, in part due to his missing the entirety of the 2022-23 season and early part of the 2023-24 season. He returned in January of 2024 and played 33 games last season, scoring three goals and totaling eight points.

He hasn’t been a significant point producer in his career, though he did tally 31 points in 73 games in the 2021-22 season. But there’s a lot about Kylington that has me interested in him.

For starters, the contract. Evolving Hockey projects the Swedish blueliner to sign a one-year deal worth $1.195M. According to their model, the next most likely deal is a four-year deal at $4.41M AAV. I’d be in on either of these.

Going back to that 21-22 season, Kylington was thoroughly impressive per All Three Zones tracking.

Immediately what jumps out to me is the Zone Exits. The LA Kings do not have a very efficient defense corps, particularly among their left defensemen, when it comes to making plays with the puck and exiting the zone with possession.

Via All Three Zones

Kylington would fill a glaring need there. And please, pause here to acknowledge this isn’t asking Kylington (or any other defenseman for that matter) to pile up points, but simply getting pucks out of the defensive zone clean would go a long way to improving the offense.

Here’s a nice example of Kylington showing how comfortable he is with the puck on his stick under pressure:

So many defensemen (I can think of a few in Los Angeles) would just wrap this puck along the wall under pressure. Sure, it’d be “out of the zone” but that’s the wrong way to look at it. Kylington instead is composed under pressure, and makes a play directly to his teammate. LA needs more of this.

His offensive numbers haven’t been off the charts – yet – but I think with how good of a skater he is, he could be in line for a breakout season in the right situation. He’s not at all afraid to carry the puck through the neutral zone and jump into the play:

Had he not missed the time he did, I think we’d be talking about a defenseman in line to make a significant raise off of his current $2.5M AAV. He’s a player – and a person – who’s persevered through a lot and is a finalist for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy as well:

As of this writing, Kylington remains unsigned with Calgary but there are talks between he the Flames:

If he hits the market on July 1st, any team that signs Kylington could be getting a top-four caliber defenseman at a very reasonable cost. The LA Kings should be first in line if he doesn’t re-sign with Calgary.

 

Main Photo Credit: Sergei Belski, USA TODAY Sports

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1 thought on “LA Kings Free Agent Target: Oliver Kylington”

  1. Interesting article, would be curious to see where Kylington stands on that same graph with the Kings D. Does Exit w Possession there include a clean pass out of the zone as well as a carry by the D? I also wonder about partner effects on this, a little surprised to see Spence so low on that chart, but being oft paired with Englund can’t help.

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