Path To The Throne – Quinton Byfield

In Quinton Byfield’s comfortable home in Manhattan Beach, homemade cookies in a big plastic bag have been rescued from his freezer by his mother Nicole Kasper and are sitting on the kitchen island.

An artificial Christmas tree still spreads red, green and blue festive cheer from an adjacent room even though it’s mid-April. The only reason the house still doesn’t boast full-on Christmas decorations is that Nicole has only just taken them down. Which is only fitting since she’s the one who put them up – during a November visit.

This is what happens when 22-year-olds are set loose in the world. So, it’s good to have family, no?

On this morning the Byfield family is well-represented.

There is Nicole, sporting an LA Kings T-shirt having made breakfast for the family, Byfield’s sister Chloe, older by three years, and Byfield’s grandmother known by all as Oma.

Oma, 86, loves to paint and walk but mostly she loves hockey and specifically loves to watch her grandson play. It has always been so. She continues a long ritual of answering the phone or making calls to family members with an impassioned, ‘he shoots, he scores, he wins the game’ or a variation on a theme whenever Byfield scores.

Byfield’s father, Clinton, is back home in Newmarket tending to the family pets – he was recently on the Kings’ fathers’ trip – but as it turns out this is no ordinary morning for the Byfield’s which is fitting since this is no ordinary season for Byfield as he continues a career arc that reinforces the long-held belief he is no ordinary player.

The family is joined in the kitchen by Byfield’s agent from the Wasserman Group, Adam Phillips. And there’s a full camera/sound crew from Amazon taping the breakfast table banter as well as a display of Byfield’s dishwasher-loading skills, a performance that brings laughter from Chloe who shares with the group that Byfield didn’t know until recently there was an upper rack in the dishwasher and once he did make the discovery wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it.

Byfield takes all the ribbing with good humor and after cleaning up from breakfast he and his entourage make their way to the Kings’ practice facility in El Segundo for a sit-down interview with national broadcast analyst Anson Carter, a long-time NHL player, including time with the Kings, as part of TNT’s coverage of the NHL playoffs which begin April 19.

So, yes, there are a lot of moving parts to Byfield’s day.

“I think sometimes I sit back and it hasn’t soaked in yet, because this is another level. How can it escalate any more than it has, right?” Nicole said. “I think we’re still in awe. Every time we think it can’t get any more you come here and look at this and he’s getting another interview. We got Amazon coming watching us make breakfast. It’s kind of crazy.”

Nicole was going to University of Toronto and working at an Olive Garden when she met a line cook named Clinton Byfield who had moved to Toronto from Jamaica.

They married and had two children, Chloe and Quinton and settled in Newmarket north of the city. There is an older step-sister who also lives in the Toronto area.

Nicole, who also grew up north of Toronto, works along with Clinton for a technology company doing purchasing, shipping and accounting.

She recalled putting Quinton on the ice as a toddler and how he immediately started run-skating across the ice. The next day (or so it seemed) he was pushing off like a miniature pro and the Byfield’s were on their way to becoming a hockey family with the obligatory van with too many miles on it, using all their vacation time (and money) to travel to games and tournaments.

They built a rink in the backyard and Byfield and his pals would spend hours on the surface. Frostbite was an occupational hazard for young Byfield and even now it doesn’t take much in the way of cold to get his fingers tingling.

Sometimes Clinton would get up in the middle of the night to spray the ice surface to get that just-right surface even though his own hockey and/or skating skills are limited.

Byfield was the first overall pick in the Ontario Hockey League draft of the Sudbury Wolves. His coach was long-time NHL player Cory Stillman.

“Just watching his game, you could tell there was a special player there,” Stillman, now the coach of the OHL’s Guelph Story, said. “He was a dominating force right from the get-go. You knew his game would transition to the NHL. He loved to come to the rink he wanted to stay at the rink he loved putting his gear on.”

He recalled talking about Byfield with LA Kings GM Rob Blake before the 2020 draft.

“I told him he’s the best kid I’ve seen come out of here in a long time,” Stillman said.

The fact Byfield’s evolution may not have been as speedy as some would have liked means nothing to Stillman.

Playing alongside and learning from a future Hall of Famer like Anze Kopitar in Los Angeles has allowed Byfield to learn the game the right way and his ongoing physical maturity has allowed him to evolve into the player he can be at his own pace.

“Now you’re seeing what he can be,” Stillman said.

Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images

Byfield is in that weird space where it seems as though a great deal of time has passed since the Kings took the big winger with the second overall pick in the 2020 NHL draft. And then you pause and consider that Byfield is just 22 years old and not so long ago was Facetiming his mother from local grocery stores showing her images of meats and vegetables in the local grocery story looking for advice on what to buy. Or calling home when he couldn’t get the windshield wipers on his car to work.

Now, after a second straight 20-goal season Byfield’s game continues to evolve and grow and with it media fascination with the young man.

“I don’t think about it too much. I just try to play hockey. I mean it comes and goes,” Byfield said of the outside attention.

There are a lot of good players on the Kings who garner attention.

“Whenever it’s my turn I just kind of go with the flow,” Byfield said.

Gary Roberts first met Byfield and his parents when Byfield was 15 playing AAA hockey north of Toronto and Roberts was hoping to encourage Byfield to join his world-renowned training and development program.

The first day of fitness testing, Byfield did nine feet on the broad jump.

“I said to one of our coaches, you might want to extend your measuring tape,” Roberts said.

“He just had that horizontal pop in his step,” Roberts added. Even without formal training that was the first indication that “holy crap, this kid’s an athlete,” Roberts added.

Over the years Byfield has learned from watching and working with Steven Stamkos and Connor McDavid and other NHL icons. He is now a young man other young men look up to.

“He certainly is a joy to have around the gym with us. He has a great personality. He’s great within the group that he works in,” Roberts said. “He’s become a specimen physically and he’s only going to get better. He loves the game. He’s done the work. To see him having the year he’s having is just a real credit to his attitude and his commitment to getting better every year.”

And he’s learned to give as good as he gets, even with the venerable Roberts.

Byfield is now often among the first to get into the gym and he revels in taking an exaggerated look at his watch or the clock on the wall when Roberts walks in and Byfield is already hard at it as if to say, ‘gee boss, what took you so long?’

The advice Roberts gave Byfield when they started working together may well have been tailored for the early years of Byfield’s NHL career.

“I remember just telling him, trust the process. We’re not going to go from zero to 100, we’re going to take our time,” Roberts said.

Roberts recalls having that very conversation with Kings Assistant General Manager and former NHLer Nelson Emerson.

“I remember saying, ‘trust the process, the kid’s going to figure it out,’” Roberts said. “Q’s the perfect example of a player you do need to take more time with.”

Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images

The family doesn’t really talk hockey. They haven’t in a long time, really. In fact, that’s advice Nicole gives some of the hockey parents she encounters helping to manage one of the local U16 teams in Newmarket – these are boys and girls, it can’t just be about the game.

But it doesn’t stop Nicole from reading and following along what is said and written about her son. She’s aware of the sometimes unflattering stories when Quinton was perhaps not measuring up to external expectations that come with being the second overall draft pick.

“Some are pretty harsh on him and I’m just like, oh my God, how is he taking all this?” Nicole said.

Still, Nicole does admit she worries less and less as time passes and the more she gets to witness the support system that exists for Byfield in Los Angeles. Like last summer when Byfield had his tonsils out right after the playoffs and Nicole had to make a quick trip to Los Angeles to help out with his convalescence. One the Kings’ office staff, who’d gone through a similar experience, left a care package of soft food for an ailing Byfield and solid food for Nicole.

When she calls and hears that he is spending time with some of the other young players on the team, Jordan Spence or Akil Thomas for instance, the worries about a son so far away in such a different world than the family is familiar with, lessens.

Like when Drew Doughty brought over a tray of lasagna. Or Anze Kopitar and his family hosting a team Thanksgiving dinner.

“I think that’s why we don’t worry so much because I said you’ve got a lot of people there who will help you out,” Nicole said.

The simple fact of the matter is that Byfield is much more comfortable in his own skin even though he’s still just 22.

“I’ve just been growing as a person away from the rink, too,” Byfield said. “It feels easier for myself being alone. Moms are always going to worry about their kids so it’s understandable but I feel just like over the years I’ve got more comfortable with the area. Everyone in the organization is always helping me.”

QUINTON BYFIELD WINS IT! 📣

He extends his goal-scoring streak to six games with the @Energizer overtime winner! pic.twitter.com/eUkwZUSYph

— NHL (@NHL) March 16, 2025

You could look high and low before you’d find a sister who both has your back like Chloe has Byfield’s, and also isn’t afraid to, well, take a little stuffing out of her famous and getting more famous by the minute, little brother.

Chloe, who is a court reporter in downtown Toronto often working on high profile criminal cases, was once called upon to dye Byfield’s hair for a junior playoff run.

“He said I burnt his skull,” Chloe said barely containing her glee at the memory. “I just kept slathering it on and he’s like, ‘stop, stop.’ And I’m like, I need to get it lighter. Just grit your teeth. Suck it up. It builds character.’”

Sisterly love also meant helping Quinton with his schoolwork so he could graduate from high school.

And it also meant watching out for a little brother who continues to navigate the sometime choppy waters of notoriety.

“I don’t know, I just don’t want people to use him,” Chloe said. “Because when you’re in the spotlight people will be fake and want to be friendly. So, I think he’s good at protecting his peace in that sense. Just want him to look out for himself. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. I think he’s coming into his own and he’s got good people around him. Not too worried now. In the beginning, yeah.”

Is there a favorite moment? Something that encapsulates Quinton Byfield for Chloe?

How about the pillow surfing incident the day before school pictures when he was young?

When performed correctly the pillow surfing involved running across the laminated floor in the Byfield house and flinging oneself onto a pillow and sliding happily to the wall.

“So, he did that but he miscalculated the pillow, jammed his face, lost a tooth, face swollen and in the picture all you see is,” and Chloe spreads her hands to mimic poor Quinton’s swollen face. “We still have that picture at home and, yeah, that sort of sums him up as a person.”

Byfield groans when the story is brought up.

“I was a reckless kid,” Byfield explained. “Whenever I was at home, I was just making up stuff on my own too, so I think it was a pillow, probably a cardboard on the bottom, slide down the stairs and just, that was the whole objective.”

Chloe recalled a couple of summers ago her brother trying to cook steaks at home for the family.

“He was barbecuing, it went up in flames and he ran to the side of the house because he thought it was going to explode,” Chloe recalled. “I have the video.”

Of course she does.

“And he just left us all standing there. Like, you’re on your own. So, I think that sums him up,” Chloe added, once again stifling laughter at the memory.

Maybe he was going for a fire extinguisher?

“He was running to the side of the house. There’s no fire extinguisher in our backyard. It was fear,” Chloe insisted. “Survival instincts. Natural selection. His eyebrows are still intact so that’s a good thing.”

Byfield confirms the grilling mishap, again with a rueful shake of his head.

“I think it was like one of my first times grilling, and my dad was trying to teach me, and he left me alone out there too long, and I started a fire,” Byfield recalled.

In spite of all the poking of fun there is a deep core of pride that runs through the entire Byfield family for what Quinton has accomplished and what lies ahead.

“It may sound weird, but it’s sort of normal. Because I knew that he was always good at hockey,” Chloe said. “Now he’s just showcasing it on a bigger stage. Now it’s not just the local people seeing it. It’s everyone seeing it. He’s still the same person. But I knew he could achieve this.”

Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images