Moving along with a look at the left side of the blueline, at least from a handedness perspective.
The Kings naturally want to have three left-shot defensemen and three right-shot defensemen in their lineup on a given night. As we saw last season, that’s not always the case if the goal is also to have the six best defensemen in the lineup on a given night. Last season’s Kings were right-shot heavy for the bulk of the season. At times, six of their seven rostered defensemen were right shots. It wasn’t prohibitive of a team finding success, as the Kings were in a playoff spot before the deadline, but adding a top-four left-handed defenseman was an organizational goal come the trade deadline, a goal that was achieved with the acquisition of Vladislav Gavrikov.
Now, entering the 2023-24 season, the Kings have a group that is better aligned towards having a left/right balance on the backend, even as lineup regulars Sean Durzi and Sean Walker were moved out in separate offseason deals. We’ll get to the right side later in the week, but a look at the left-handed group on the backend to kick things off.
Who They Have
Mikey Anderson, Tobias Bjornfot, Kevin Connauton, Jakub Dvorak, Andreas Englund, Vladislav Gavrikov, Joe Hicketts, Cole Krygier, Jacob Moverare, Kim Nousiainen
Where They’re At
By my count, that’s ten left-shot defensemen under NHL contracts and six defensive positions on the left side of the blueline between Los Angeles and Ontario. Now, the conversation starts at the NHL level, where the Kings are in a much different position than they were a season ago. Entering camp later this month, the Kings will have two, established top-four defensemen in that group in Mikey Anderson and Vladislav Gavrikov. There is little dispute about about the LD1 and LD2 spots, as both Anderson and Gavrikov proved to be effective partners with Drew Doughty and Matt Roy respectively, and as such that is most likely how they will open the season.
What happens behind those two players is certainly a more interesting conversation, because the Kings have several options to fill the LD3 role, but just one spot available in the everyday lineup. The Kings signed defenseman Andreas Englund on the opening day of free agency to a two-year contract with a salary-cap hit of $1,000,000. Englund played 47 NHL games last season between Colorado and Chicago and brings a physical presence on the backend that the Kings did not have last season. There’s also two holdovers – Tobias Bjornfot and Jacob Moverare – who have NHL experience. Bjornfot’s 70 games in 2021-22 were the most among Kings defensemen and he played a handful of games a season ago with the Kings. He also partnered Jordan Spence for the bulk of the season in the AHL with Ontario. We have a good sense of what Moverare is at this stage in his career – his strengths stem from hockey IQ and awareness and he is one of the smartest and most defensively responsible players around. His weaknesses are in his skating and the offensive side of his game, but he’s not being asked for that either.
Beyond those three is veteran Kevin Connauton, who was acquired as a part of the trade with Philadelphia over the summer, as well as free-agent signing Joe Hicketts and three younger players – Jakub Dvorak, Cole Krygier and Kim Nousiainen. Connauton has 360 games of NHL experience and should prove to be a nice depth option either at the backend of the NHL rotation or as a veteran at the AHL level, while Hicketts has NHL experience and was a high-level point producer at the AHL level a season ago. Dvorak is more likely than not to play the season in Europe, while Krygier is a rookie and Nousiainen is a second-year player. Overall, while the makeup of this group is different, the Kings are a deeper and more experienced group on the left side entering camp.
Photo by Ric Tapia/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
What To Look For
Anderson and Gavrikov are locks for the roster, so while we will be mindful of their performance and play during training camp, we know who they are as players and we likely know where they will slot into the lineup.
Beyond that, however, represents what will likely be one of the more exciting roster battles come training camp. Beyond Anderson and Gavrikov, we rattled off eight additional names who could battle for that spot come training camp. The front runners in the conversation have to be Englund and Bjornfot. Englund was signed for a purpose and he was signed to a two-year contract, which is a longer commitment than the Kings gave anyone else during free agency. Englund has NHL experience and he was among the NHL’s leaders in hits per/60 last season, ranking fourth among skaters with at least 500 minutes played at 5-on-5. He’s not going to be mistaken as an offensive blueliner but he’s comfortable in his game and plays to it. Bjornfot still represents a player with bright upside, but while he’s played in more than 100 career NHL games, we don’t have a good sense of exactly who he is as an NHL player. He’s a terrific skater who is noticeable when he asserts his game but that didn’t come consistently enough last season to push his way into the regular rotation. Bjornfot has a lot of strengths in his game and asserting himself into games more regularly will force himself into the picture. As noted above, with Moverare, we know exactly who he is as a player and that type of player will always merit consideration. With Connauton, he’s an experienced option who we’ll get our first glimpse of come the preseason.
All of those players require waivers to be assigned to Ontario, so unlike past seasons when there was an easy way out in some cases – Bjornfot last fall – that won’t be the case this season. Waivers claims are not something you can really predict and they are typically overblown, but it’s one factor that is now equal for all of the players vying for that spot.
The other factor to consider is that the Kings are unlikely to carry a 23-player roster, considering current salary-cap constraints. The outlook, currently, is that of a 21-player roster, which means just one extra skater. That skater could be a forward or a defenseman, meaning that there is the possibility of two players from the left-shot defenseman group making the NHL roster. There’s also the possibility that the Kings opt to carry an extra forward instead of a defenseman, or that they opt to have that player be a right-shot blueliner. Something that will be played out during training camp, but it’s something to keep in mind when projecting a roster for October 11.
A Look Ahead
The next article will shift over to the right side, with a group that still presents high-end talent, but is noticeably thinner than it was a season ago. More on what that positional group entails coming up later on this week!
Photo by David Becker/NHLI via Getty Images
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