2026 Exit Interviews – Edmundson, Armia, Ward, Kuemper, Malott

Concluding player exit interviews today with a look at the final five players who spoke to the media last week.

This group included a couple of guys who played their first seasons in the NHL in Jeff Malott and Taylor Ward. Joel Edmundson was also in that group, a respected veteran within the room who fought through some injuries to play 82 games for the first time in his career. Rounding out the interviews were goaltender Darcy Kuemper and forward Joel Armia, who both had ups and downs this season but neither played a part in the season-ending defeat in Game 4.

The videos were posted on YouTube as one video, so each embed below is the same, just timestamped to the start of the conversation of the players mentioned. For those interested, you can watch every video at once in any of the embedded players below.

Joel Edmundson

Edmundson
I’ve always appreciated Joel Edmundson’s insight. I feel he has a lot of it when asking him about various parts of the game.

His exit interview was no different.

He pointed to an “up and down” regular season and talked about something few others got to, which is the need to play better at home. The Kings suffered one of the biggest drop offs in terms of home performance we’ve seen in the NHL in recent memory, falling from first in the league to 29th.

“Last year, we had the really good home record and this year was a really good away record, we need to find a better balance. We have to play good hockey in every game, no matter if you’re on the road or at home.”

In terms of what the Kings have not done enough of throughout the up and down season, for Edmundson that answer was clear – goals scored.

Not necessarily personally, because that’s never really been his game. But as a team, he referenced it in three separate answers.

“We’ve got to find the back of the net more.”

“I still think we can create more offense.”

“We’ve just got to find the back of the net ourselves.”

The Kings have to score more goals next season. They likely need to change certain things about organizational philosophy and strategy in order to do so. Edmundson seemed to understand that and emphasized it multiple times throughout his interview. Yeah, he leaned into the defensive stuff too that many others have. In the Colorado series, it’s okay to note that the Kings limited the top offensive team in the league, chance-wise, but to do so without acknowledging five goals scored in four games would be an incomplete picture.

Thought Edmundson was one guy who stepped up and said it, as he has often done throughout his time here in Los Angeles.

Also worth mentioning that he was asked about an injury he suffered midseason. It’s one that, in his own words, probably should have cost him a few games but he was able to play through it. By the time the playoffs came around, he was good to go, but he was playing below 100 percent for a couple of months, into March.

“It definitely took a good couple of months to get over that. I probably should have sat out a couple games, but at that time, I felt good enough that I could play. It’s one of those things where you grow up and it’s like, if you can skate, you’re going to play. That’s just kind of the way I approached it. It feels a lot better now and we’ll be good to go.”

Joel Armia & Taylor Ward

Armia
Joel Armia is not a man of many words, but I thought he summed things up pretty well when it came to his first season with the Kings.

“I really liked the start to the season, I feel like I was producing and helping the team that way too. I would have loved to keep up the pace there, for sure, but the Olympics and the injury, I feel like that made it a little bit more difficult, beyond that level. It’s not about any excuses or anything like that, but yeah, that probably played a little of a bit part in that too. I’ve got a lot of hunger for next season. I always want to be better every year. I feel like thinking what I did at the start of the season, that’s where my goal is to want to play like that the whole season and produce more and play at that level.”

Armia downplayed his injury throughout his availability, though on Friday, Ken Holland confirmed that it was a “back fracture” which is I think a lot more severe than perhaps it was initially thought. Armia maintained that he was healthy, noting that if you’re in the lineup, you’re healthy enough to play. He was scratched for Game 4 versus Colorado but again, didn’t use the injury as an excuse for what happened.

Would like to know how things might’ve played out without injuries to Armia and forward Kevin Fiala during the Olympics.

All-in-all, Armia’s first season with the Kings was a strong one. Up through the Olympic break, I think he was the best player of the five who the Kings added over the summer. He was signed to play on the fourth line but produced at a third-line rate. He was outstanding at the Olympics too, but unfortunately the injury he sustained made that the peak of his season. He wasn’t as effective upon returning from injury, but he was likely not 100 percent either. He’s under contract for another season and his versatility will be an interesting one to see how the Kings view him, strictly as a fourth-line player or perhaps a value contract as a third-liner. He’s shown he can play on a third line when healthy. Let’s see if he gets that chance going forward.

Ward
Taylor Ward wasn’t expected to be on this stage, after this season. In October, you’d have pegged him as still playing hockey, in the Calder Cup Playoffs with Ontario. Lots of things change.

He made his NHL debut in April the season prior but with the number of forwards on the depth chart, specifically players added to play on the fourth line, playing in the NHL this season didn’t feel likely, at least early on. Then he got called up, when injuries and trades presented an opportunity. Then he stuck in the lineup, despite players coming back in around him. Then he earned a contract extension for two years, with a one-way salary, meaning more of an investment in him by the organization. Then he made his Stanley Cup Playoffs debut in Game 4. Whirlwind of a season for Ward, moving so quickly he never really had the chance to think about it much along the way.

“The season moves fast during the year, so there’s not a whole bunch of time to reflect, but I’ll take some time here to just look back over the last few months and figure out some things that I need to work on this offseason and find out what I need to add to hopefully come back and make the team again next year. That’s what the plan is, I just haven’t really started that process yet.”

Frankly, for Ward, simply making the NHL exceeded what most people would have expected. He was an undrafted free agent who signed at a later age after his college career. He played in the AHL for multiple seasons as he forged his path professionally. Good thing it wasn’t the expectations of others that mattered.

He’s never been a guy who was at the top of too many lists, at any level. He forced his way onto those lists. Thought this was a good quote from him on that process of how he got to this point.

“I just think you need to have, probably at some point, a delusional amount of self belief, because there’s a lot of people out there that will tell you or show you that they don’t think that you can do it. It’s going to take probably a little bit longer than most guys in that locker room. I’m older than lots of those guys that have been in this league for a while. So, it’s just a long grind and if you believe in yourself, you work hard, you don’t listen to any outside noise, I think you can do anything.”

Easy guy to root for, coming back to battle for one of the final spots on the Kings roster in September.

Darcy Kuemper & Jeff Malott

Kuemper
Darcy Kuemper was asked the question that I think everyone wanted to know the answer to.

Starting with the unpenalized goaltender interference play in Dallas, when Kuemper had to leave the game and missed time after he was hit in the head by Stars forward Mikko Rantanen, was he 100 percent from that point on?

That question was asked. There just wasn’t really much to be gained from the answer.

“I think by the end of the year, I felt really good about my game, just, the results weren’t what they were, but I thought it was good hockey.”

Kuemper added in a later answer that going to the Olympics was a struggle upon returning, that it took him a little bit to get back on track. That was compounded by an illness that cost him another week or so. By the end, though, while his numbers sagged, Kuemper wasn’t leaning on any sort of injury as a reason for it. He felt, as the quote says, that he was playing better than his results. Ultimately, though, it’s a results-driven business and the Kings went with Anton Forsberg in pivotal moments because his results were better.

Come the postseason, Forsberg was very complementary of the teammate that Kuemper was. It’s a hard position for a long-time starter to be in, not playing. He acknowledged the difficulty in the situation, but was still trying to do things each day to be ready to go and also so that Forsberg was ready to go.

“It wasn’t fun, definitely, not playing and watching, but t’s out my control at that point, so I just wanted to be there for my teammates. It was his first time going through all that, so I just wanted to help him anyway I could.”

Lastly, Kuemper was asked, considering how the season ended, if he felt that needed any clarification on his role with the team going into the summer. Kuemper has one season remaining on his contract and naturally didn’t have the ending he wanted.

He did not feel he needed that and he’s planning to come back and compete to regain the starting role.

“I don’t think so. I’m just going to have a good summer, come back and be ready to play my game.”

Ultimately, coming off a Vezina nomination in 2025, this was not the season Kuemper expected, nor the season that the Kings expected from Kuemper. In Ken Holland’s end-of-season interview, he said Kuemper was not happy with that season. Lots of unknowns for the Kings heading into the summer, but a return to form by Kuemper would certainly go a long ways towards solidifying that.

Malott
Coming into training camp, Jeff Malott was not slotted on the NHL roster.

Then came an injury to forward Corey Perry, which opened up a spot on the team for Game 1. That became Malott, who was the team’s most standout player during training camp and throughout the preseason.

He made the team, in Perry’s spot, but even after Perry came back, Malott never left and played 58 games this season, which is 45 more than he had played in his entire career coming into the season.

It was certainly different for him. He was a top-six forward in the AHL for his entire career and a leading scorer on those teams, playing big minutes with power-play time. In the NHL, he played largely on the fourth line, playing 8-10 minutes per game, needing to play differently than he would in the AHL.

He called it a season of learning, as he adjusted to that difference.

“A lot to learn, it’s definitely different than the American League, just the schedule and everything. Just learning to kind of figure out a bit of a different role and try and earn a spot every night, but it was definitely a great year to learn.”

The fourth line was a bright spot at times, though it took on a lot of different forms. Malott played probably his best hockey of the season with Samuel Helenius and Taylor Ward, but he had a number of linemates throughout the course of the season. That’s part of the adjustment process.

In the AHL, Malott was a player who you built lines around. In the NHL, it’s typically a focus on filling out the Top-9 and then assembling the fourth line last. As one of the more consistent players on that line, Malott tried to help develop a style that didn’t change based on who was playing on that line.

“That’s kind of the nature of a fourth line is you’re going to have interchangeable parts, you’re going to have guys coming in and out. That was just kind of our goal going into the season was establishing an identity and trying to be hard to play against. It’s something we worked on all year.”

Going forward, Malott is an unrestricted free agent this summer and he will likely merit a one-way contract somewhere. Will that be in Los Angeles or elsewhere remains to be seen.

That’ll do it for player Exit Interviews. I have a little bit more to wrap up the season and then it’s fully into offseason mode here with player evaluations to come later this month.