Kings defensemen understand they need to contribute more offensively and are excited for the chance to prove it on the ice

Drew Doughty is excited.

At the end of last season, he didn’t hide from what he felt was a season that was not up to his own standards, as an individual or as a team. Whether this season will be better or not remains to be seen. But it will certainly look different.

The LA Kings are looking to do some different things this season and a lot of those things will involve their defensemen. For Doughty, who has produced throughout his career, he’s really looking forward to the changes and being more involved further up the ice than he was last time around.

“The D-activation is completely different, like it’s going to be amazing,” Doughty said. “We’re going to create so much more offense. A lot of times in the past two, three years, we were just playing basically 3-on-5 in the o-zone. The D were told to stay out at the blueline and that just put a lot of miles on the forwards and not be able to create. Now, we’re going to be moving and creating lanes to them and creating shots and it’ll be a lot of fun.”

Doughty’s offensive production dried up last season, with just 23 points (5-18-23) in 71 games played. The exact reasons as to why, there’s probably some layers to that, including systematic instruction. His enthusiasm for doing things differently was on display after Monday’s practice and he’ll be one of many who will be asked for more this season.

The Kings need more, from a variety of areas. Regardless of where it comes from or how it happens, the Kings need to get more offensive production from the blueline this season. Doughty is always one to speak his mind and he feels it’ll happen. But the proof will be in the pudding on the ice.

In 2025-26, the Kings were last in the NHL in goals from defensemen and 30th in points of the 32 teams in the league. In sticking with the theme of what we’ve heard throughout the summer, it’s another area in which the Kings need to do more to score more goals overall.

In looking at the six seasons that Peter Laviolette and Phil Housley have worked together, the groups of defensemen on those teams finished no worse than eighth in scoring by defensemen, finishing in the Top-5 four times. In Los Angeles is they don’t need to be in the Top-5. They don’t need to be eighth. They just can’t be 32nd.

Sounds easy on paper, right? Change some things up, emphasize certain things, produce more. I think there are two things that are important to keep in mind, though, because it is not that simple.

One is that we’re talking about a group that is returning all six defensemen from last season. While Brandt Clarke is the outlier, as he led all Kings defensemen in goals, assists and points, the rest of the group last season was defense-first. Clarke himself needs to take a step forward to reach his own potential. For guys like Doughty and Brian Dumoulin, there was a lot more in their games in years past in terms of puck movement than we saw last season. But to expect a group of defensemen with four players in their 30’s to drastically change their games is probably unlikely.

Laviolette feels the changes are more nuanced than perhaps they are made out to be. He isn’t expecting drastic alterations but hopes that within some of the things players will do on the ice, there could be more production as a result.

“It’s not like somebody’s going to change their game, have 95 points and be up for the Norris Trophy,” Laviolette said. “I think that there are subtle changes inside the game where we can maybe – as a group, not necessarily talking about individual players – we can look for ways to maybe find a little bit more offense [from the blueline].”

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The other important note is that while the Kings struggled to generate offense from that group, they were very good defensively in 5-on-5 situations. The Kings allowed 140 goals last season at 5-on-5, which was the third best clip in the NHL. That’s a strength of the team and a position the Kings want to build on, without getting away from. It’s no longer defend at all costs, though. It can’t be. There seems to be more of a give and take.

“I think that’s going to be the line that we have to kind of toe and not cross,” defenseman Cody Ceci said. “We want to be a little more offensive, but we don’t want it to be run and gun every single night. So, that’s going to be something that’s going to be a bit of a learning curve for us, but I think we’re all excited to get back into the play a little more offensively.”

Brian Dumoulin, who had an encouraging training camp, is hopeful that the team’s defensive approach last year helps in that area.

Dumoulin is someone who was a top-pairing defenseman in Pittsburgh earlier in his career and while he was never a point producer, he was a solid puck mover, who often partnered Kris Letang during some of his best seasons. Dumoulin’s hope is that the baseline mindset from last season helps the group to where they can work to contribute more than they did last season without selling the farm.

“I think it’s a good way to go about it, where you kind of have that defensive mindset before, so you don’t just sell the farm and try to get too involved offensively, I think it’s a good thing where we’re coming from,” Dumoulin said. “I think it’s a comfortability and it’s also knowing that we’ll be there for the [forwards] instead of that question mark. I don’t think we had a lot of that last year, where forwards pull up on the rush and we’d be there. I think we were a little bit disconnected in that sense. I think just that freedom, us making reads, we have to be smart about it too, we can’t just be risking it and jump in for play, but I think that’ll be up to us to read that situation and see. I think almost everyone should be comfortable trying to get in the offense.”

What I think everyone wants to avoid is a situation like we saw at the start of the 2022-23 season. Coming off a playoff appearance, the Kings added Kevin Fiala and committed to improving the offensive production. They did, but it came at the expense of far too much in the other direction. The first two months of that season saw the Kings score at least five goals seven times, but they also allowed five-plus goals seven times, ending with the infamous 9-8 loss against Seattle.

It wasn’t sustainable. The Kings scored more goals but it was reckless at times. That’s why I think Laviolette is speaking about a nuanced approach to the situation.

It’s not going to be a wholesale thing. What he doesn’t want is a free-for-all. He, like everyone else, is pushing for more offense. It just needs to come within the system and needs to come with proper decision making and care. Playing off of instincts is a big part of what the Kings are looking to do and that’ll put the onus on the team’s defensemen to not only know when to activate, but to make the right plays and reads when they do. We didn’t see nearly enough of that last season. Time to see that change.

Will it work?

I think that’s one of the biggest questions facing the Kings this season. The players are being asked to emphasize certain things and there are certain things that will be different. The Kings are 0-0, so it hasn’t worked or not worked. We won’t really know if it does or doesn’t until we see it in meaningful game action. Everyone’s aware, though, and we’ll see what we get as the games begin tomorrow.

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Kings defensemen on a desire to produce more offensively –

Anderson – I think we’ll be good. I think guys maybe have some offense in here too that just hasn’t been used. Obviously, some of that is systematic, maybe the way it’s gone, but they want us involved. Whether it’s creating space, it might not be always with the puck but opening up space for the forwards to make a play. Been a little bit of an emphasis so far too, so I think there’ll be some more movement. I think guys are excited and ready for something that’s a little different.

Ceci – We’re all anxious to get going and get back in into the play a little more. We’ve been a little more defensive in past years, so we’re all excited to get a little more involved offensively. I think everyone has kind of had a chance to play it at some point in their careers. It’s a different look, but I think it’s very effective if you can do it properly.

Dumoulin – Right now, you can see [the coaches are] giving us a lot of freedom to make reads, which I really, really like and try to predict the game a little bit, read where people are, be able to jump a play if you see an opportunity. In the offensive zone, to be able to make a read, whether it’s down the wall or through the middle and try to hem teams in a little bit more offensively, come down the walls and be able to read when a puck is on the wall that we’re allowed to get there and meet that winger. We’ve got to have someone reloading and have that responsibility for our forwards to be there for us. So, obviously this year we’re going to try to hem teams in the offensive zone a little bit and try to create more in zone offense.

Edmundson – Every team wants to create more offense. I think for us this year it’s going to be more o-zone movement. In the past, we’ve kind of been stationary on the point and that makes it kind of easy on other teams’ forwards to either get in the lane or block shots. Just more movement. I think it’ll be more fun for us to create some more offense. It might take a few of us some time to get used to that, because I’ve been stuck on a blue line for a few years now, but you’ll see guys like Clarkey and Dewey, they’ll be able to roll a bit more.