Armed with a first-round pick for the first time since 2021, a look at the Kings approach heading into the NHL Draft

The approach for the LA Kings when it comes to the NHL Draft is simple in principle, but difficult in practice.

In theory, it’s the approach that every team takes.

You want to get the best player on your internal team draft rankings with each pick. It’s about more than that, though, because draft rankings are an inexact science. At the end of the day, yes, there will be rankings with numbers attached. But it’s not as simple as 1 – 200 and that’s that. Certain rankings, player to player, are indistinguishable. Others feel like the Pacific Ocean.

For Kings Director of Scouting Mark Yannetti and the Kings, that’s where they lean on their tiers as much as they do their rankings.

In different situations, you might find yourself picking at the start of a tier. If, for example, when the Kings are on the clock at pick number 21 on Friday and their current tier of players is 20 players long (it won’t be that long, but for reference), that’s a situation in which the Kings might look to trade down. They might get a player lower in their rankings, but it’s in in a range where the Kings see several players around the same level. If there’s one player left in that tier, and then a Pacific-Ocean sized gap to the next tier, something Yannetti labels as a “break” in the draft, you’d expect the Kings to make the pick.

“Rather than talk about a player, we would always talk about a layer,” Yannetti said. “So, if there’s two players in a layer and you pick third and there’s two players left, you know you’re going to get one so you don’t value that tier as much, because you can move back a spot. If there’s four players, you can move back further, if there’s six players, and that’s where the break is, it’s more of a way of valuing a slot, rather than assigning a name.”

Every team thinks its rankings are the best and I’d imagine that most teams walk away from drafts with multiple players who they had ranked higher, internally, then the pick they selected them with.

The concept of tiers is a way to try and bridge some of the gap between players playing in different parts of the world.

How to you evaluate a player who played in Finland, against men, in the highest level of competition in his country versus a player who played in the USHL? You might be inclined to look at the player who played professionally, but what if he had eight points on the fourth line compared to 80 in the USHL as the top dog?

Those are challenging comparisons and the Kings have scouts all over the world, helping to put players into the right tiers. When you get similar scouting reports and players around the same value, it helps to create a tier.

Again, it’s easy in principle.

If it’s your pick and you have six players left in your tier, you likely want to move back. Finding the right dance partner and the appropriate value, though, is key. Yannetti admitted there’s not quite as much of a widely accepted science behind draft pick value in hockey as in the NFL, with the Jimmie Johnson chart which is still used today. The Kings have a version, but it’s not publicly available like in the NFL, where it comes from one of the greatest coaches in league history. So, best laid plans might say trade down but do you have a team below you who is willing to move up? That move would guarantee you get a player in your tier, but do you have an offer on the table that is worth the move down?

Yannetti recalled a previous draft when the Kings got a call to move back in the first round, by two or three spots. The offer was a sixth-round pick, which was a big value loss. Another team moved back earlier in the day and netted a second-round pick, for a larger move, but the gap wasn’t as big as the pick being offered. It’s situational and it takes two to tango.

“You don’t want to lose, so you don’t want to give up less value and you always want to win,” Yannetti said. “If you’re the team that’s motivated to trade, you usually want to lose it by a little [on the draft value scale], because if you’re pushing the issue, the other team’s probably going to win, right?”

Yannetti understands too that his team is slated to pick in the first round for the first time since 2021.

Is there a danger in potentially overvaluing that pick, for a team that hasn’t had the chance to add a first-round caliber prospect to the system in three years?

“Absolutely,” he said. “[But], if you’re not willing to objectively look at the situation, like if someone offered you three second-round picks at 35, 46 and 60, whatever, yeah you should move back. Obviously if someone from number six on your list fell, you wouldn’t want to move back, you wouldn’t want t. You can’t just say, we haven’t had a first-round pick in three years, we better make the pick, that would be dangerously narrow minded.”

For the Kings, though, they’re entering this draft with pick number 21 and no pick until the fourth round. The second-round pick was traded last summer in the deal that sent Cal Petersen to the Philadelphia Flyers. The third-round pick was sent to Buffalo in exchange for Erik Portillo. The former was the cost of doing business to free up cap space, rectifying a bad contract while the latter has to be presently looked at positively.

Portillo is developing nicely and Yannetti is more or less viewing him as a part of the haul from this season’s draft crop.

“Buffalo drafted Erik Portillo, but he was an amateur and for all intents and purposes, Erik Portillo was drafted in the third round of this year’s draft,” Yannetti said. “I think that’s a great return. Anything, you acquired amateur wise is the amateur pick.”

Still though, despite the excitement surrounding Portillo, that’s two picks in the first three rounds the Kings don’t have to use this weekend. And, keep in mind, this is a team that didn’t pick in Round 1 in 2022 or 2023 and has been short additional picks as they’ve traded for veteran players over the last few years.

Yannetti wasn’t giving away conversations or specifics, but if the tiers fall a certain way, and the opportunity was there to perhaps make up one of those draft picks without sacrificing on the value list, it’s not something he’d be opposed to.

“I would like to have a second-round pick, you don’t want to have holes,” Yannetti said. “My goal going into this draft, in a vacuum, would be to find a way to get to get a second-round pick or a third-round pick. Obviously both would be perfect, it’s not as feasible, but, I would want to consider, at least, consider going into the draft of turning your first into a late first and a late second. Then you have to look at the tiers. If it’s a late first, does it take you out of a tier, does it take you out of a break, but having that big a gap in the in the second and third, certainly it’ll affect the efficacy of your draft. The problem is, you start allocating resources, we don’t have a second or third, and you focus on different areas of the list where you think your picks are going to come from. Inevitably someone either falls, or now you finally have the opportunity to move up, which you never have before and you’ve got to be careful of being prepared the right way.”

With Day 1 tomorrow, comes the opportunity to see how these situations play out.

The Kings have their list and if tiers run out faster than expected, the Kings certainly don’t seem shy from moving back. They also won’t be shy about making the pick at 21 if the draft breaks differently. you could see them maybe want to trade up, in the event of a very-highly ranked player falling.

All options are on the table and that’s the beauty of the draft. The beauty of having more draft capital at the top than in past years, with a first-round pick at their disposal.