INSIDER: Exit Interviews, Key Takeaways

LA Kings players held their end-of-season exit interviews earlier this morning at Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo.

Throughout the course of the day, we heard from 18 players on a variety of topics. Over the next several days, I'll share a more in-depth summary of what was said by each player and the videos should be posted in full to the Kings YouTube channel here over the next couple of days. 

In those articles will come more assessments of team performance. Players were asked at length about the season and the playoffs, both of which fell short of expectations. Losing in four, no matter how you shake it, is losing in four. Plenty of that today as well and that needs to be dissected further. Will have those articles out beginning tomorrow, with notes from each player, and within that will include what was said about the team's play over the course of 86 games. For today, sharing more of the black and white details we learned and heard from today, as the season comes to an end.  

- I think the most "noteworthy" things learned from today, if you will, would be what we heard from defenseman Drew Doughty. 

Doughty is entering the final season of his contract, an eight-year, $88 million dollar deal signed now closing in on a decade ago. Doughty signed that contract with a year remaining on the contract he had, meaning it'll be nearly 10 years between contracts. To this point, there have not been any conversations between Doughty and Kings management regarding an extension, which he would be eligible to sign on July 1, one year out from his impending free agency. 

"There's been absolutely no conversation about it," Doughty said today. "I want to stay here. I would hope that the Kings want me to stay here too. If they approach me to get something done, I'm going to get it done."

Doughty acknowledged that his play this season dropped off and "wasn't as good as it needed to be". In terms of going forward, he wasn't opposed to seeing his role reduced if it benefitted the team and in a separate answer, he praised the growth in Brandt Clarke's game. All of the above leads to a decision that needs to come within the next 12 months, perhaps even this summer, regarding Doughty's future here. As he said, he wants to stay and wants to play his entire career with the Kings. He also understands the business. Doughty is his own agent, so negotiations lose that buffer layer in between, unless he changes anything. 

It's an interesting one to monitor for sure. 

- On the contract front, defenseman Brandt Clarke is a restricted free agent this summer for the first time. 

He made one thing extremely clear today - he wants to be a Los Angeles King.

"I want to be here, I love Los Angeles, I love my teammates, I love being in that locker room," Clarke said today. "That's what I want. We'll see what happens. In terms of the type of contract, I don't really know. I think it all comes down to what they're saying and I hope it comes to the point where it comes long term, I want to be here long term, I want to lock myself in and I want to be a part of this core. I think I've expressed that since I got to Los Angeles, I love being here and my mentality hasn't changed over the years."

Clarke's deal is an interesting one, because you could see perfectly logical paths to both a short-term extension and a long-term extension. The short-term route would keep him as a restricted free agent and comes in at a lower number. However, if Clarke hits and continues to grow, the long-term deal that follows will be more expensive. A long-term deal now is a higher dollar figure for next season, but potentially keeps the cap hit lower down the road. Interested to see how things play out with 92, but it's encouraging that he seems to have no interest in playing anywhere else. 

He said that the two sides did touch base during the season, however both he and the team shut those down temporarily to focus on qualifying for playoffs. Would expect that to resume now that things are done on the ice. 

- Furthermore, two answers that I would say are pretty different from a pair of pending unrestricted free agents came from Scott Laughton and Andrei Kuzmenko. 

With Laughton, he made clear that he is extremely interested in signing with the Kings this summer.

"The interest level is high for me, for sure," he said. "The opportunity I was given here, the guys here, the staff, the way I was treated, my family came down, which was awesome, and they absolutely loved it, so yeah, the interest level is high. Not the ending you want, but there's guys in there that really care and I had a lot of fun in the two months I was here."

Laughton added that there have not been discussions really to this point, but that was mutually agreed upon when he got here. He wanted to come in and focus on his play, focus on trying to help the team reach the playoffs and see how the fit was. Now that the dust has settled, Laughton expressed how much he enjoyed playing with the Kings and should things make sense, he seems very open to extending that relationship. 

The other side of the coin was with Kuzmenko, who was much more non-committal.

"We'll see" was the short answer.

And it's understandable. Quite the disparity between how Kuzmenko's 2024-25 season ended and how his 2025-26 season ended. He admitted it was challenging coming back from his injury over the final couple of months and his focus heading into the summer is completing a full recovery and being ready to go, whether that is with the Kings or elsewhere. Skilled player who was a big part of the 2025 team. 

I could see a world where it makes sense for both sides, creating another scoring line with Kuzmenko and Kevin Fiala. Could also see where both sides might see the fit being better with another organization. Time will tell. But certainly not the same sort of optimism there was this time last year. 

- On the injury front, the biggest revelation was from forward Quinton Byfield.

Byfield suffered an oblique tear shortly after the Olympic break. He missed one game but played through the injury and eventually had it mostly heal up. Then, he suffered the same injury on the left side but did not miss a game. During that stretch, he played his best hockey of the season and was one of the team's top performers during the series versus Colorado. All while playing through the pain that those injuries entail.

"I tore my right oblique, in my abdomen and then after that kind of healed, in a month's time, I did the same thing on the other side," he said. "For like the last two months, it was one oblique and then the other. It was a battle."

We knew Byfield was battling through injury, but we didn't know it was to this extent. 

Byfield said that he would not need a surgery this summer to correct anything, which is encouraging, but he required injections and smaller procedures that helped him to be able to "push through" the injuries and keep playing to help the team. When asked about what parts of his game were most impacted, Scott Laughton stepped in with one word - "everything".

Byfield said that things as simple as a sneeze would be extremely painful. To take those injuries and compete throughout the end of the season and into the playoffs, while raising his level of play, is extremely commendable. Shows a lot about what Byfield is made of. The Kings need him to become that guy for 82 games next year. While there are still steps he needs to take, you have to show him respect for the fight he put forth down the stretch.

- On forward Adrian Kempe, he had a foot injury in March that cost him one game in New York and hampered him for "5-6 games" by his estimation. He admitted it was tough to work through it, since it was an injury that really impacted his skating specifically. Right around the calendar flip into April was when he started to feel a bit more like himself. 

"The first, I want to say five or six games after it happened, I didn't feel like I played 100 percent, but I tried to do my best to go out there and still help the team, whether I was 100 percent or [less]," he said. "After that, when it started going away, I got my confidence back, started feeling better. It was a foot injury, so my skating wasn't at my best, so I lost a little confidence there, just because I know how much I need my skating. Towards the end of the season and into playoffs, it didn't bother me or affect me at all. Feels a lot better right now."

Kempe did miss the game at Madison Square Garden against the Rangers but returned the following game against Philadelphia and played every game the rest of the way, including all four in the postseason. No player scored more regular-season goals than Kempe in the month of April, which aligns with the timeline of when he started to feel more like himself again. 

- In terms of additional injuries, Joel Edmundson, Joel Armia and Darcy Kuemper all dealt with things this season.

Edmundson never actually missed a game, though he admitted maybe he should have. He said that by the time the playoffs rolled around, he was healthy, but it took him a "couple months" to get to that point. 

"I'd say it's definitely healed now, but it definitely took a good couple of months to get over that," he said. "I probably should have sat out a couple games, but at that time, I felt good enough that I could play. It's one of those things where you grow up and it's like, if you can skate, you're going to play. That's just kind of the way I approached it. It feels a lot better now and we'll be good to go."

Armia did miss time with a back injury that cost him around a month coming out of the Olympic break. He did not feel there were any lasting impacts from that injury once he did return to the lineup and that he was healthy. However, while he did not use it as an excuse, he admitted later in the interview that the injury definitely disrupted the momentum he had built with a really strong start to the season and a great Olympics with Team Finland. 

"It was a tough injury, but I feel like that I felt fairly healthy [after coming back] and I felt good enough to play," he said. "I think that if you're in the lineup, you're healthy."

For Kuemper, the play everyone wanted to ask about was the play in Dallas back in December, when he was run by Stars forward Mikko Rantanen. He didn't really offer a ton of insight into the injuries he had this season. He said that by the end of the year, he felt good and felt his game was better than his results. He added that the first week or so back from Milan after the Olympics was really tough for him and everyone who went, but once he got over that, he felt good.

Maybe leaves some questions unanswered, but he certainly wasn't taking the injury route as an excuse for anything. 

- Looking at the World Championships in Switzerland, no one confirmed that they are going. Might be a little bit too early. Didn't seem to be a ton of interest but who knows. It's a real bummer that Kevin Fiala isn't ready to go, because his native country is hosting the tournament. If he was, though, maybe it was a non-factor because the Kings would've still been playing. 

If anyone does decide to play, look for announcements here as early as next week.

- The final note for today that I found interesting was regarding the vacant captaincy, with Anze Kopitar heading off to retirement. 

I'd look at three internal candidates - Doughty, Kempe and defenseman Mikey Anderson. 

Doughty didn't shy away from the fact that yes, he would like to wear the "C" with the Kings, though he acknowledged that his future needs to be sorted out first, as it doesn't make much sense to have a captain who is only signed for one season. 

"I would love to be the captain of this team," Doughty said. "It's something that when I was younger, it's something I never thought of and I kind of grew into a leadership role and now it's something I cherish. It would mean the world to me to be captain."

Anderson and Kempe were more deferential, pointing to the need for several players to step up in the leadership department with Kopitar's departure. 

Kempe referred to himself more as a quieter leader off the ice but someone who tries to be more vocal on the ice and lead the team during games. He pointed to Kopitar as being less vocal in the locker room as well, but said you always felt his leadership qualities in games and on the ice. He's tried to learn from how Kopitar carried himself and from a leadership standpoint, he's more of that style of leader than a stand up, vocal presence in the locker room.

For Anderson, he is more of the vocal leader, as is Doughty. He pointed to a leadership group that he already felt was collective, with the four captains from this past season as well as Edmundson, plus what he thought Laughton and forward Artemi Panarin brought as midseason acquisitions. He pointed to his time with several Kings veterans, including guys like Dustin Brown, Jonathan Quick and Jeff Carter, who he learned from, as well as Kopitar and Doughty. 

It'll be interesting and it won't be decided tomorrow. It doesn't even need to be decided at all, as the Kings could choose to play with three alternates. But if you are looking at internal options, those are the three names who would qualify.