Unlike most recent summers, the Kings entered Tuesday with more real questions than answers. Would Vladislav Gavrikov really leave for New York, how would the recent signing of Andrei Kuzmenko impact the rest of the top-6 forwards, and could GM Ken Holland fill five holes in the lineup?
Soon after lunch was over on Tuesday, nearly all of the decisions had arrived. When all was said and done, Holland had signed four players, spent over $15M (plus the $4.3M given to Kuzmenko on Monday), rebuilt LA’s fourth line, added a backup goaltender, and put two big bodies on the Kings blueline.
Recapping the deals really quickly:
Corey Perry
Signed a one-year deal carrying a $2M cap hit. The final expense on this contract will all come down to the incentives, which don’t count against the cap until the end of the season. Per PuckPedia, the contract breaks down as $1M in salary and another $1M in signing bonus. Then, there are a variety of performance bonuses, including $500K at 10GP, $250K at each of 20/30/40/50 GP, $125K more if the Kings win one round of the playoffs, another $250K if they advance past the second round, and yet another $125K if they make it to the Stanley Cup Final.
Despite being 40 years old, Holland was talking about Perry playing a net front role on the power play during his end of day press conference. Over the past four seasons, Perry has scored 19, 12, 12 and 19 goals during the regular season. Only six of his 19 with the Oilers last season came with the man advantage. However, it was a totally different outcome in the playoffs. He skated in 22 games during Edmonton’s postseason run and potted 10 goals, five on the power play.
Joel Armia
He’s a player the Kings have looked at before, including heading into the 2025 Trade Deadline. At 6-foot-3, the 32-year-old forward is expected to join Perry on the Kings new-look fourth line. That group could be centered by either Alex Turcotte or Sammy Helenius, depending on any other roster moves made this summer and/or a training camp battle for the final unknown spot among LA’s 12 forwards (more on that below).
Armia signed a two-year deal with a cap hit of $2.5 million. He played 81 regular seasons games last year and a combined 74 the year prior. His 11 goals last season provided some secondary offense for the Canadiens.
Cody Ceci
Moving on to the defense, Ceci signed LA’s most eyebrow raising deal of the day, a four-year contract carrying an AAV of $4.5M. The thoughts on this deal simply land on what side of the fence you are regarding Ceci as a player. Some people like Paul Coffey love Ceci, as referenced in our article earlier today.
While they aren’t the same player, in many ways the reaction to this contract feels similar to what some had to say about Joel Edmundson’s UFA contract with the Kings last summer. It was more about the AAV or the length than anything else. In the end, that proved to be a fair market contract, and he worked out rather well in LA. Holland will need to see similar results from Ceci to get similar praise for this deal one year from now.
He’s averaged around 80 regular seasons games per season each of the past four years. So, if nothing else, he’s been durable.
Brian Dumoulin
This 6-foot-4 rearguard probably flew a bit under the radar after the previous signings. Holland inked him to a three-year deal with an AAV of $4.0 million. The assumption with Dumoulin is that he’ll play LD2 or LD3, potentially rotating with Edmundson at times to give coach Jim Hiller different looks on his blueline. One thing is for sure, though — he’s not coming to SoCal for offense. They want him to shut opponents down and use his 214 lbs. frame to make life rough on people.
Anton Forsberg
He signed a two-year deal with an AAV of $2.25M. This move was likely necessitated by a combination of two things. One, teams who want to go on a deep playoff run often don’t feel comfortable doing so with a rookie backup goalie (Erik Portillo). Then, add in that Portillo missed the entire second-half of the season with an injury, and there were bound to be questions in net beyond Darcy Kuemper.
Kings 2025-26 Projected Roster
Kuzmenko – Kopitar – Kempe
Fiala – Byfield – Laferriere
Moore – Danault – Foegele
Perry – Turcotte – Armia
Helenius
(with a training camp competition for the 14th forward among Andre Lee, Akil Thomas, Liam Greentree, Jeff Mallot, Jared Wright, etc.)
Anderson – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Dumoulin – Ceci
Moverare
Kuemper
Forsberg
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He signed a two-year deal with an AAV of $2.25M. This move was likely necessitated by a combination of two things. One, teams who want to go on a deep playoff run often don’t feel comfortable doing so with a rookie backup goalie (Erik Portillo). Then, add in that Portillo missed the entire second-half of the season with an injury, and there were bound to be questions in net beyond Darcy Kuemper.
Kings 2025-26 Projected Roster
Kuzmenko – Kopitar – Kempe
Fiala – Byfield – Laferriere
Moore – Danault – Foegele
Perry – Turcotte – Armia
Helenius
(with a training camp competition for the 14th forward among Andre Lee, Akil Thomas, Liam Greentree, Jeff Mallot, Jared Wright, etc.)
Anderson – Doughty
Edmundson – Clarke
Dumoulin – Ceci
Moverare
Kuemper
Forsberg
MORE LA KINGS NEWS:
Follow @mayorNHL
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