2025 Kings Seasons In Review – Vladislav Gavrikov

Working into the defensemen, we’ll start the seasons in review series with a look at defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov, who is coming off the first 82-game season of his NHL career.

Vladislav Gavrikov
LAK Statline – 82 games played, 5 goals, 25 assists, +26 rating, 28 penalty minutes
LAK Playoff Statline – 6 games played, 0 goals, 2 assists, -1 rating, 2 penalty minutes
NHL Possession Metrics (Relative To Kings) – CF% – 54.9% (+2.6%), SCF% – 55.9% (+3.9%), HDCF% – 57.6% (+3.3%)

I’d call it a career year form Gavrikov, personally. Coming into the season, the Kings had the 29-year-old blueliner locked into the LD2 role but an injury to Drew Doughty, combined with inconsistent performances on the blueline early in the season, saw Gavrikov moved to the right side on the top defensive pairing. It was there that he thrived, seeing his minutes uptick and his role increase, with one of the best seasons of his career, performance-wise, as a result. More on his performance below.

Trending Up – Gavrikov was selected as the team’s most Outstanding Defenseman, voted on by the members of the media. Seeing his role elevated, Gavrikov logged a career-high 23:07 this season, as he led all Kings blueliners with a +26 rating during the regular season.

Around the NHL this season, Gavrikov established himself as a top defensive defenseman. Of the 17 blueliners to log at least 1,500 minutes this season on the backend, Gavrikov’s 1.64 goals against per/60 was the best mark in the league, while his on-ice metrics for scoring chances against and high-danger chances against were also the best in the league among those defensemen. 17 is a small number, certainly, but these are the highest-usage players in the league. The numbers presented a pretty clear picture. With Gavrikov on the ice, the Kings allowed very few goals, which stemmed from allowing very few chances. Pretty good combination.

In terms of individual contributions, Gavrikov ranked second in the NHL in stick checks on the season among all defensemen in the league, also ranking second specifically in stick checks in the defensive zone. Gavrikov also ranked inside the Top-5 among all NHL defensemen in defensive-zone denial rate and the Top-10 in the league in passes blocked in the defensive zone. Lots of different statistics, lots of different defensive categories, lots of Gavrikov towards the top of those lists. Shows who he was this season pretty clearly. When it comes to defensive contributions, few players around the league matched Gavrikov’s play during the regular season.

The other part of Gavrikov’s season, which is why I personally voted him as the team’s most outstanding defenseman over Mikey Anderson, is that he switched sides of the ice with Doughty out. After he did so, Gavrikov shared that he grew up playing on the right side of the ice regularly in junior hockey in Russia, so it wasn’t foreign to him, but with the team’s top RHD out for several months, Gavrikov was the guy who really stepped up into a top-pairing role. The Kings wouldn’t have been where they were without Gavrikov taking on that role early in the season and he deserves his praise for having done so as effectively as he did. I think he merited some consideration for the team’s MVP as well, though Darcy Kuemper was an obvious choice there. A very important role he played for the Kings.

Trending Down – Gavrikov is not thought of as an offensive defenseman and among that same group of 17 defensemen with heavy usage, just two scored fewer 5-on-5 goals this season than Gavrikov’s four. In terms of total production on the season, Gavrikov ranked tied for 56th in the NHL in terms of points. Certainly not bad production and again, not exactly what he’s paid to do. For a top-pairing defenseman, though, especially one in search of a longer-term contract at a top-pairing defenseman’s clip, you’d want to see a bit more on the production side to merit that type of contract. He’s proven himself to be steadily in the 20-30 point range, but hasn’t elevated his production beyond that, which limits his ultimate upside.

For as good as Gavrikov’s underlying metrics were in the regular season, his numbers in the playoffs were a dip from that form, especially while shorthanded. Small sample size, certainly, but of the 102 defensemen to play in the postseason, Gavrikov had the sixth-highest expected goals against, per/60, in penalty-killing situations. Much of that was bolstered by high-danger chances against, which was the third most among all blueliners. The 82-game sample size largely outranks six. But in the most important six games of the season, with Gavrikov on the ice, the Oilers generated their most dangerous power-play chances of the series. Gavrikov also saw his usage drop in the first-round series, playing under 20 minutes in 4 of 6 games after averaging 23:05 during the regular season. I didn’t think Gavrikov had a bad series at all, but I also didn’t think he had an hugely impactful series.

2025-26 Status – Gavrikov represents the biggest decision the Kings have to make this summer among internal free agents. Gavrikov’s contract is expected to be a long-term deal that carries a pretty sizeable salary-cap hit. The Kings and Gavrikov’s representation have touched base since Ken Holland took over as the team’s new general manager, though nothing further to report on that front as of today. Per AFP Analytics, Gavrikov’s contract projection is a seven-year deal with a cap hit of $7.6 million, which would coincide at least with the term discussed before Holland took over. Remains to be seen where things go, as Holland provides a fresh look, but a massive decision incoming, certainly.