When Vladislav Gavrikov signed his first contract with the Kings in June 2023 — it always felt like the term was a little too short. However, it made sense given where the Kings were at with their salary cap numbers, and the fact that when it ran out in the summer of 2025, Gavrikov could easily be in line for a much bigger extension.
Now, here we are, nearing the final few months of his current contract and all Gavrikov has done is seen his value to the team increase. Now 29 years old, the 6-foot-3 defenseman is in the midst of what could be his finest season in the NHL. His offensive numbers are about where they usually are. Yet, his versatility has made him nearly invaluable to coach Jim Hiller, especially during the first 50+ games of the year, where the team was without Drew Doughty.
Not only did Gavrikov move over to play his offside, but he also did so on the top pairing with Mikey Anderson. And all underlying metrics support that duo as one of the best in the NHL this season. Again, helping prove the importance of Gavrikov.
With the NHL Trade Deadline coming later this week, it often serves as a pivot point for teams and their unrestricted free agents to be. Throughout the past few months, we’ve been told that isn’t the case with Gavrikov and the Kings. Nobody inside the organization views next Friday as a crucial date for him to sign an extension. Both sides seem fairly comfortable than an extension will eventually come, and it will get done before the end of June. Meaning, he isn’t expected to hit the open market.
Late last week it was also discovered that Gavrikov had recently switched agents, moving over to Pat Brisson and CAA — an agency that has proven to have smooth relationships with the Kings front office through the years. So, there aren’t any immediate concerns with the switch?
What could a new deal look like? And why is that important?
Working in reverse order, the Kings are looking for scoring help at the moment. If they’re strictly looking to work withing the salary cap of this year, they already have a good idea of how much room they have to operate within (i.e. how much cap space they have open between now and the end of 2025-26). This essentially amounts to rental players. Meaning, players they bring in now don’t need to fit into next year’s cap figures, so Gavrikov’s potential new deal becomes irrelevant in those math calculations.
If the Kings were looking to add a forward with a multi-year contract (say, Rickard Rakell, just for example purposes), then the front office would be looking at their cap space for the next three years, as Rakell is signed through the 2027-28 season. Thus, having a rough idea of what Gavrikov and his camp will be looking for would at least cause them to pause and evaluate how many other dominos a Rakell acquisition could ultimately impact.
This is where comps can come into play. There are least three other defensemen of similar age, experience, and playing style who have recently signed extensions with their clubs:
It could probably be argued that Jacob Slavin (8 years at $6.46M) is in a tier slightly ahead of Gavrikov given his additional offense numbers. The former has produced at .40 points per game with Carolia vs. Gavrikov’s .30 career mark. Even so, this takes nothing away from the important role Gavrikov plays, and this is only one set of numbers being compared for simplicity purposes.
Another factor to take into all of this is that salary cap is going up each of the next two summers, which of course means that overall salaries will be going up.
Gavrikov’s current deal carries an AAV of $5.875M. What’s next?
The term of his extension will probably be either six or seven years. Pushing things out to the maximum of eight years is often done to bring down the AAV. Given his age, that’s probably not the preferred term for the deal; hence a sweet spot of seven years most likely.
As for the money, we’d estimate the new contract to come in around $6.4M with a +/- of $250K, depending on term. Getting him signed closer to $6M is obviously ideal, even if it could prove to be a difficult task given external market factors.
Looking out a little further, the Kings are actually set up rather nicely for this coming summer. With the Kings having already locked up most of their major pieces to long-term contracts, their cap situation will really boil down to as little as three players for 2025-26.
For illustration purposes, they’re projecting to look something like (and moving any of the players around to different lines or pairings in the configuration below won’t impact the salary cap numbers):
Laferriere (NEW) – Kopitar – Kempe
Foegele – Byfield – Fiala
Turcotte – Danault – Moore
Lee – Helenius – Thomas
OPEN (NEW)
Anderson – Doughty
Gavrikov (NEW) – Clarke
Edmonson – Spence
Moverare
Kuemper
Portillo
What this means is they have three contracts to really worry about, with nearly $23M to spend. They’ll need to sign Gavrikov, get a new contract done for Alex Laferriere, and add at least one forward to the roster. Basically, they’ll have plenty of money to accomplish all three.
We’ll do another full-blown salary cap outlook after the Trade Deadline. For now, we just wanted to highlight how well positioned they are to upgrade their roster this summer — with two final notes for the math lovers.
First, Laferriere will be an RFA without arbitration rights; leaving the possibility his next contract will be more of a bridge deal, followed by a larger and more expensive contract down the road (similar to how Mikey Anderson was handled).
Second, even though the Kings should have at least $12M remaining to upgrade the roster after signing Gavrikov and Laferriere, they could actually have more than that to spend. For example, if a player is traded off the current NHL roster, the player being added can make more than $12M starting in 2025-26. All of this only reinforces the idea that GM Rob Blake will have plenty of money for roster upgrades during the offseason.
And speaking of potential trades, let’s share a little more. No, we don’t expect the Kings to trade Quinton Byfield, Brandt Clarke, or Liam Greentree in any moves made this week.
Further, let’s provide even more context to a tweet that went out over the weekend:
While the team’s 2026 first round pick is believed to be in play this week, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Kings have the asset package or cap space to make a big splash at the moment. Something like that is much more likely (as explained above) during the summer.
The Kings top priority at the moment is upgrading their offense, with the goal to add a right shot forward. They could also be looking to add a short-term depth goaltender. Given some struggles by David Rittich recently, they could have used a healthy Erik Portillo as an option. Unfortunately, he’s out with an injury right now, so he’s not an option. Portillo is NHL ready, though, and expected to be with the big club next season.
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