2025 Kings Seasons In Review – Brandt Clarke

Continuing through the defensemen with a look at Brandt Clarke’s first NHL season. More ups than downs, certainly, for a player who brings a skillset no one else within the Kings organization possesses. More on the young blueliner below.

Brandt Clarke
LAK Statline – 78 games played, 5 goals, 28 assists, +13 rating, 46 penalty minutes
LAK Playoff Statline – 6 games played, 2 goals, 0 assists, +1 rating, 0 penalty minutes
NHL Possession Metrics (Relative To Kings) – CF% – 53.7% (+0.8%), SCF% – 53.0% (-1.3%), HDCF% – 57.5% (+1.6%)

This was not Brandt Clarke’s debut season, nor did he classify as a rookie, but it was his first full season in the NHL. Clarke made the team out of training camp, as expected, and spent the entire season with the Kings. He was scratched for a couple of games midseason but largely played the full schedule in a third-pairing role. A lot to look forward to coming off Clarke’s season, with more certainly to come for a player with as high of upside as any player within the organization.

Trending Up – To put it simply, the Kings created a lot of offensive opportunities this season when Clarke was on the ice. On a per/60 basis, let’s look at where Clarke ranks in several different categories from an on-ice perspective, not an individual perspective. That means these numbers are for the Kings as a whole with Clarke on the ice, not Clarke specifically.

Goals For – Led LAK Defensemen
High-Danger Chances – Led LAK Defensemen
Scoring Chances – Second Among LAK Defensemen
Shots On Goal – Led LAK Defensemen
Shot Attempts – Led LAK Defensemen

Paints a pretty clear picture. When Clarke was on the ice, the Kings generated chances at a higher rate when averaged out on a per/60-minute basis than any other blueliner on the team who played regular minutes.

It’s easy sometimes to forget how young of a player Clarke truly is, but put it into perspective from this direction. Among defensemen drafted in 2021 or later, only three blueliners around the NHL had more assists or points than Clarke did this season – Montreal’s Lane Hutson, New Jersey’s Luke Hughes and Buffalo’s Owen Power. When you factor in usage, with Clarke averaging less TOI than the other three, the numbers are very similar. Among those four defensemen, all four averaged ranked between 1.15 and 1.35 points per/60 in all situations. Pretty good company for Clarke to be in.

This is an opinion here, so it won’t really be supported by facts, but I loved the way Clarke developed in terms of his risk taking throughout the course of the season. The Kings encourage Clarke to use his abilities to make plays. He’s said that himself numerous times. But they need him to do it when the situation calls for it. When it’s a 30/70 play, live to fight another day. When it’s 70/30, take the risk and live with the consequences. Or, if it’s 50/50, is the juice worth the squeeze on what the reward is? If the reward is a scoring chance, go. If it’s winning a puck in the neutral zone, maybe not. I felt Clarke struggled in that area early in the season but down the stretch in March and April, I noticed him making the right decision on numerous occasions. The player deserves credit for those improvements, which should hopefully lead to an enhanced role going forward.

Trending Down – With Clarke, there’s likely always going to be a risk/reward factor. I thought he really excelled in managing that late in the season but in total, he posted the highest goals against per/60 of any Kings defenseman. He was second from the top in scoring chances against and high-danger chances against as well. During the playoffs, those numbers ballooned a bit and his expected goals share the worst of any Kings blueliner in the series against the Oilers at 32.8 percent.

Clarke is an offensive defenseman and with Drew Doughty out of the lineup for the first three and a half months of the season, Clarke had the first opportunity to replace him in power-play situations. In collecting three assists against Ottawa in Game 3 of the regular season, he looked to be off to a great start. For the rest of October, though, he had two total PP points (1-1-2). Had just one goal in November and it was an empty-net goal. One assist in December. His next power-play point came on March 30 against San Jose. Sometimes, you can feed all the metrics you want to prove a point. Sometimes, it’s just about raw production and it simply wasn’t there in power-play situations for Clarke in Year 1, who played a part on an ineffective unit.

Lastly, Clarke’s four healthy scratches have to be brought up here. Lots of conversation around why those happened and when they happened. Let me offer a perspective that goes against the grain. From what I’ve heard, the Kings felt Clarke lost some of that danger in his game offensively midseason, as the games got tougher, and that led to the reset. Clarke’s offensive production dipped heavily from October/November to December/January, moving from just over two points per/60 to just under one point per/60. I know that a lot of the conversation centered around his defensive play but I think it was a bit more than that. If the offensive is covering up the defense it’s one thing but if the production goes dry for an offensive player, it’s a different conversation. Seemed to be the case there for Clarke. From the second two scratches on, Clarke played at a high level. Going forward these should be a blip for a talented young player.

2025-26 Status – Clarke is under contract for one more season, carrying a salary-cap hit of $863,334, before becoming a restricted free agent in the summer of 2026. This is a big year for Clarke as it pertains to that contract. I think his upside remains extremely high and if he can have a true breakout season offensively, he’s in line for a big deal. If not, he likely takes a smaller contract, similar to what we saw with Sean Durzi a couple years ago, and waits for that breakout to come. Either way, you want to see steps of growth heading into next season for one of the highest-upside players in the Kings organization. I am bullish on him being able to do that in the long run.