Los Angeles Kings

Expansion money, the Forum, and the Gretzky years

The Kings exist because Jack Kent Cooke paid the NHL two million dollars in 1967 for one of six expansion franchises and put it in a city with no hockey habit. The team played briefly at Long Beach Arena before moving into the Forum in Inglewood, where it stayed for 32 seasons.

The franchise's centre of gravity shifted on 9 August 1988, when Wayne Gretzky was traded from Edmonton to Los Angeles. The Kings reached their first Stanley Cup Final in 1993 and lost to Montreal, a series remembered in Los Angeles for a stick-measurement penalty that turned Game 2.

Since 1999 the team has played downtown at the building now called Crypto.com Arena, under Anschutz Entertainment Group ownership. Eight players have had their numbers retired or are about to be: Rogie Vachon, Marcel Dionne, Dave Taylor, Gretzky, Luc Robitaille, Rob Blake, Dustin Brown and, from February 2027, Kopitar.

The two Cups, and the twelve years since

Los Angeles won the Stanley Cup in 2012, beating New Jersey in six games as the first eighth seed ever to do it, with Jonathan Quick taking the Conn Smythe Trophy. Two years later the Kings beat the New York Rangers in five games, Justin Williams taking the Conn Smythe.

Nothing since has come close. The Kings have not won a playoff series since 2014, and between 2022 and 2025 they lost four consecutive first-round series to the Edmonton Oilers — a run that defined the second half of Kopitar's career and shaped how the roster was built, around defensive structure and goaltending rather than scoring.

Kopitar's last season

The 2025-26 campaign was announced in advance as Kopitar's final one, and it was uneven. The Kings finished 35-27-20 for 90 points, fourth in the Pacific Division and eighth in the Western Conference, and scored 225 goals — the fourth-fewest in the league. Jim Hiller was removed as head coach on 1 March 2026 and D.J. Smith finished the season on an interim basis.

General manager Ken Holland made the biggest in-season move in the league on 4 February 2026, acquiring Artemi Panarin from the New York Rangers for prospect Liam Greentree and conditional draft picks. Panarin produced 27 points in 26 regular-season games in Los Angeles. Adrian Kempe led the team with 36 goals and 73 points; Byfield had 49 and Alex Laferriere 44.

Kopitar played his 1,500th NHL game on 5 March 2026, the 25th player to reach the mark, and passed Dionne as the franchise's all-time leading scorer on 14 March. He retired after 20 seasons and 1,521 games, all with Los Angeles: 452 goals, 864 assists, 1,316 points, two Stanley Cups, two Selke Trophies, three Lady Byngs and the Mark Messier Leadership Award. The ending was abrupt — Colorado swept the Kings 4-0 in the first round between 19 and 26 April 2026.

A new bench and an older room

Holland hired Peter Laviolette as head coach on 9 June 2026. Laviolette, 61, had not coached since the Rangers dismissed him in 2025; he arrives with an 846-562-161 record across 23 seasons and six franchises, a Cup with Carolina in 2006 and Finals appearances with Philadelphia in 2010 and Nashville in 2017. He has spent camp installing a quicker, more aggressive attacking system in place of the low-event hockey the Kings have played for years. Darcy Kuemper described the adjustment plainly: new drills, new systems, everyone having to think again.

Free agency on 1 July brought Mats Zuccarello on a one-year deal after 54 points in 59 games with Minnesota, Erik Haula on two years after 38 points in 81 games with Nashville, Corey Perry back for a second stint on one year, and Erik Gustafsson on defence. Scott Laughton, acquired earlier, signed for three years. The result is one of the oldest rosters in the NHL.

Drew Doughty was named captain in September 2026, taking the C from Kopitar in what is his 19th season. He is 36 and has said he intends to keep himself on a more even keel in the role. Kevin Fiala will miss months with an injury picked up at the Olympics and opened the season on injured reserve; defenceman Kirill Kirsanov was loaned to Ontario of the AHL.

Where they stand, October 2026

The opening-night roster carries 13 forwards, seven defencemen and two goaltenders, with Anton Forsberg and Kuemper splitting the net. The start has been rough. The Kings lost the season opener 8-4 at Colorado on 30 September, Nathan MacKinnon scoring twice in a four-goal second period and fighting Brandt Clarke late on; Joel Armia and Trevor Moore both scored short-handed in a losing cause. Three nights later in San Jose, Los Angeles came from two goals down in the third to force overtime and lost 5-4 when Igor Chernyshov scored with 1:42 left in the extra period. Kempe, Byfield, Haula and Panarin were the scorers. The Kings are 0-2.

This is an 84-game season, the longest regular season the league has played, and the Kings have 83 dates listed on sale. Previews have them on the playoff bubble rather than among the contenders — a wild-card side whose fate depends partly on whoever around them stumbles. Byfield, 24, is the pivot of the whole thing: with Kopitar gone he is expected to carry the top-line centre job full-time.

The season's set-piece is 24 February 2027, when Kopitar's No. 11 goes to the rafters before a game against Montreal and a bronze statue of him — the fourth outside the arena — is unveiled. Other marked home dates include the defending champion Carolina Hurricanes on 18 March, Alex Ovechkin's visit on 6 January, Vegas on 1 December and 8 April, and the Freeway Face-Off home-and-home with Anaheim on 27 and 28 November. There are seven-game homestands from 29 October to 14 November and from 30 December to 13 January.

Crypto.com Arena on a hockey night

Doors open 90 minutes before the puck drops, and a good share of the crowd uses that window: warm-ups draw people down to the glass twenty minutes before the hour, chasing a puck over the boards. The arena sits inside the LA Live complex, so the pre-match hour tends to happen on the plaza and in the bars around it rather than in the concourse.

Inside, the pre-game video and light sequence is the production centrepiece, run in the dark before the anthem. Six youth players aged 12 and under stand on the ice alongside the starting line-up for the anthem each night. Bailey, the mascot, does in-seat visits during stoppages, as does the ice crew. The Team LA Store sits across from section 117, there are arena tours on non-match days, and the bag policy is strict — no backpacks, totes, purses or clear bags, with rentable lockers near the Kobe Bryant Entrance for anything that will not go through. Home attendance through 2025-26 ran at roughly 18,000 a night.