With milestones & career highs in hand, Warren Foegele is helping the Kings in more ways than one

When he scored midway through the second period of Sunday’s victory over San Jose, Warren Foegele did something he hadn’t done all season. Something he hadn’t done since January, 2024. Something he had only previously done three times in his NHL career.

Warren Foegele scored a power-play goal.

In doing so, Foegele added yet another accomplishment onto a debut season of success here with the Kings.

Foegele’s power-play goal was his 21st goal of the season in total, a new career-high for the Markham, Ontario native in the NHL. He scored again later in the period to set another personal record at 22, with a first-career 25-goal season certainly within his sights. This coming in the same week he scored his 100th career goal in the NHL, while also playing in his 500th career NHL game.

Not a bad week, eh?

“Pretty special, pretty cool,” Foegele said, to have so many milestones stack up alongside each other.

Since February 1, most of the focus from an offensive standpoint had been on Quinton Byfield and Kevin Fiala. Right now, it’s on Andrei Kuzmenko. Rightfully so on all three. But quietly, sitting third on the team in points during that span has been Foegele, who has amassed ten goals and 19 points from 25 games. His 43 points in total this season are a new career-high, two clear of the 41 he collected last season with the Edmonton Oilers.

With a pair of goals tonight, Warren Foegele has set a new career-high in goals (22) and points (22-20=42). pic.twitter.com/Ac6NssFmHz

— LA Kings PR (@LAKingsPR) March 31, 2025

You know what the best part of it all is? It still feels like there could be more to come.

“I went back and looked at all his goals in his career and it just seemed like last year, he started to score some nicer……more difficult……required a larger skillset than he did earlier and I think we’ve seen that now,” Kings Head Coach Jim Hiller said of Foegele. “I think he’s got a good shot. I think he can get into places with his edges, he’s not afraid to go to the net. Of course, that’s how he’s going to get most of them but you can just see it takes some time to get really comfortable in the league and in a goalscoring role. I think we’ll continue to see that going forward.”

Foegele inked a three-year contract with the Kings over the summer, carrying an AAV of $3.5 million per season. Certainly looks like one of the best value contracts a team gave out around the NHL.

In Foegele, the Kings targeted a player who they felt would fit the way that they played the game and had more upside to give when presented with a larger role. They felt, simply, that Foegele was a Kings hockey player.

“I think if you were to build a Kings player in a lab, it would look something like Warren Foegele,” forward Trevor Moore said.

What a quote.

It has certainly proven to be true that Foegele was the right fit. The organization saw a player who played perhaps a different role with the Oilers than was envisioned with the Kings and that meant a player who had more to give in other areas of his game. His production last season was solid, as he scored 20 goals for the first time, but in an elevated role with more importance, the Kings always believed that Foegele could deliver even more than he did with the Oilers.

We’re seeing that firsthand in Los Angeles.

“He’s the type of player that fits our system, he skates, he can play in all kinds of situations, which is really important,” forward Adrian Kempe said of Foegele. “I think he has been getting more confidence out of that too. He’s playing really well at the moment, which is really important, especially in the final stretch here and going into playoffs. That’s the type of player we’ve been looking for more of. Hopefully he can keep bringing that.”

So what exactly does Foegele bring? Honestly, it’s a little bit of everything.

You want goals?

Foegele ranks third on the Kings with 22 goals in total this season. His 21 even-strength goals are second, behind only Kempe. At 5-on-5, Foegele leads the Kings in goals scored on a per/60 basis at 1.19. If you think that only ranks highly because the Kings are a low-scoring team, well, think again. Of the 212 NHL players with at least 1,000 minutes played at 5-on-5, Foegele’s ranks ninth across the league in goals scored per/60 at 5-on-5.

Yeah, but anyone can have an outlier season, right?

Well, all eight players above Foegele in that metric have a higher shooting percentage than Foegele’s 12.8%. If you change from goals to expected goals, Foegele actually jumps up to third in the league, showing that he has created the chances to back-up the scoring. The shooting percentage is up from his career totals, certainly, but it’s only half a percentage point above the median of forwards with at least 1,000 minutes played.

Ultimately, where Foegele has done the bulk of his damage offensively is exactly where Hiller said he’s going to score his goals. Around the net. And those come with a higher rate of success.

To support the goals, Foegele is averaging 5.1 high-danger chances on a per/60 basis at 5-on-5, the third-best clip in the NHL when zoning in on players with 1,000+ minutes. For reference, Edmonton winger Zach Hyman leads the NHL in high-danger chances and we know how many goals he scored last season by getting himself into the dangerous areas on the ice. Foegele has done that as well as most. See Exhibit A, below.

That’s not to compare the two players. But rather to point out a simple yet typically true statement. The best place to score goals is from right in front of the net. Foegele has done a nice job of that.

To succeed with the Kings, though, you’ve got to commit at both ends of the ice. Case in point, when asked about Andrei Kuzmenko’s three-point night yesterday, Hiller spoke about how noticeable Kuzmenko has been on the backcheck since he was acquired. You hear similar things when it comes to Foegele, who has also been complemented by Hiller on his tracking, especially over the last couple of months.

The production has been awesome but Foegele is impacting games all over the rink.

“He’s steady, you know what to expect from him every single game,” linemate Phillip Danault said of Foegele. “He’s going to be the first one in on the forecheck, he backchecks hard as well, he takes care defensively. We all play a solid, two-way game and we can score some goals as well, so that’s a nice thing.”

If you’re looking for responsibility defensively, well, Foegele’s goals against per/60 is the lowest number among Kings regulars. That’s 5-on-5. He’s also been one of the most effective penalty killers on the team, forming an effective duo alongside Quinton Byfield. Have referenced this before when it comes to Byfield, but Foegele ranks in the 97th percentile in terms of time spent in the offensive zone while on the penalty kill and the 98th percentile of time spent in the defensive zone. What it’s led to is, with Foegele on the ice, the Kings are suppressing chances at a better rate than with any other forward on the kill.

Danault also mentioned the forecheck and Foegele ranks second on the Kings in pucks recovered off of dump-ins this season, leading the way in scoring chances created off of those recoveries. It’s a weird stat, right? But that’s Foegele. He’s a very good skater and he’s willing to use that skating ability not just with the puck, but in pursuit of getting the puck back. He’s done a pretty effective job of doing so on all fronts.

Now comes the important part.

The last reason the Kings really wanted a player like Foegele.

We all know that the playoffs are a different breed of hockey. At times over the last three seasons, we’ve seen the Kings overwhelmed in what General Manager Rob Blake deemed the “uncomfortable” parts of the game. Foegele is a player who won’t be. The way he plays the game should translate, on paper at least, to that time of the season. He isn’t reliant on pretty, off-the-rush goals to find success and he impacts games whether he’s scoring or not. The hard-nosed, in-your-face play. The forechecking. The penalty killing. The dirty goals. All things that will be amplified come next month.

“It’s huge, especially during playoff time, he’s going to be important there,” Moore added. “He does a lot of things well.”

Foegele was a part of Edmonton’s run to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals last season. He knows what it takes to get there. Alongside other acquisitions who have made a difference, the Kings targeted players for Game 83 and beyond. Those players, with Foegele at the forefront, have made a difference all season.

Now, though, is the time when it matters the most. Continued success from Foegele, playing the way that he has, could go a long way in making it count.

Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images