Beginning the individual seasons in review with Adrian Kempe, the team’s leading scorer from this past season. Kempe came into the season as arguably the organization’s biggest question to answer – would he sign a long-term extension with the Kings. That answer was yes, with Kempe and the Kings agreeing to an eight-year contract extension that keeps him under contract through 2034. A look at Kempe’s season below.
Adrian Kempe
LAK Statline – 81 games played, 36 goals, 37 assists, +14 rating, 58 penalty minutes
LAK Playoff Statline – 4 games played, 1 goal, 1 assist, -5 rating, 4 penalty minutes
NHL Possession Metrics (Relative To Kings) – CF% – 52.2% (-0.2%), SCF% – 49.7% (-3.8%), HDCF% – 46.7% (-9.0%)
Kempe was selected as the Team MVP by the local media in Los Angeles, as the team’s best player throughout the course of the season. Kempe was the team’s leading scorer in just about every category offensively. Combined with his usual combination of defensive responsibility and edge, Kempe was once again the most impactful player on the team this season, which has become a theme for the 29-year-old winger. Locked in now for eight more seasons at an eight-figure cap hit, that'll need to continue to be the case going forward.
Trending Up – Adrian Kempe led the LA Kings in goals. Adrian Kempe led the LA Kings in assists. Adrian Kempe led the LA Kings in points. On a team that was starved for offensive production throughout the bulk of the 2025-26 season, Kempe was one who delivered. For the fourth time in five seasons, Kempe reached the 35-goal mark. He also eclipsed 70 points for the third straight season. Only seven players in the NHL have scored 35+ goals four times over the last five seasons and Kempe is in that group. Despite playing the bulk of the season on a team that ranked among the NHL’s worst in goals scored, Kempe was extremely productive.
When you dive into Kempe’s production, he was specifically one of the best 5-on-5 goalscorers in the NHL. Filtering through the production, Kempe scored 25 times 5-on-5, which was tied for the sixth-most goals in the NHL, trailing only some of the NHL’s best goalscorers – Cole Caufield, Nathan MacKinnon, Tage Thompson, Dylan Guenther and Macklin Celebrini. He was also among the most influential players 5-on-5, meaning he was routinely involved with a goal or an assist when he was on the ice. Kempe collected a point on 81.8 percent of Los Angeles goals he was on the ice for, the eighth-best percentage of players in the league with at least 1,000 minutes playing 5-on-5, among the 268 players to reach that threshold.
Throughout all of the production, Kempe did so while posting some of the NHL’s best numbers in terms of on-ice goals against. On a per/60 basis, Kempe was on the ice for 1.93 goals against, the seventh-best clip among forwards with at least 1,000 minutes played 5-on-5. Kempe was also the best forward on the Kings in terms of controlled zone exits. Per SportLOGIQ, Kempe ranked second in total carry-outs with possession and did so at the highest percentage with a successful play after among Kings forwards at just shy of 84 percent.
Pretty simple summary of Kempe's regular season. When the offensive totals are there and the defensive results are there, you’ve got something going for you.
Trending Down – I think this is the first time you can ever say this about Adrian Kempe but he did not deliver in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Kempe was arguably the team’s best performer each of the last four years in the postseason. His ability to elevate his game come the playoffs has always been a defining trait but in the four games against Colorado, Kempe wasn’t able to do so. He scored just one goal, in Game 3, and was a minus-five against the Avalanche. To have had any chance in that series, the Kings needed their top players to deliver. Kempe didn’t do that this time around and his inability to do so was one reason why the Kings were swept in four straight games.
How concerning are Kempe’s underlying metrics? They are outliers in his career, meaning they are worse than what we’ve seen over the past few seasons. They also did not impact results, as Kempe’s actual goal share this season was just shy of 60 percent. However, among full-time Kings players in the regular season, Kempe’s expected goal share was the second-lowest on the team, per Natural Stat Trick, at 48.1 percent. In terms of high-danger chances against and scoring chances against, Kempe had the highest numbers on the team and the highest rates of his NHL career and in chances against, high isn't a good thing. Comes down to this. Nothing in this paragraph hurt the Kings, because expected goals are not real goals. But underlying numbers can forecast future results. It’s one to monitor as we go forward. If it's an outlier, it's no harm no foul. If it's a start of a trend, it's one to more severely monitor.
2026-27 Status – Back in November, Kempe signed an eight-year contract extension with the Kings, which kicks in this fall. Kempe is now the longest signed player in the organization and is a franchise pillar to build around going forward, coming with a full no-movement clause for the first four years of his contract. I think the only thing to consider with Kempe’s status going into next season is who he will play with. The Kempe/Kopitar pairing has been a staple for the Kings for several seasons but it will not be there going forward. Finding the right makeup in the Top-6, with Kempe as a focal point, will be a major point of emphasis for the team’s next head coach entering the 2026-27 season.
