Coming off of a regular season where coach Jim Hiller and his players tied a Kings franchise best mark of 105 points, the obvious question heading into 2025-26 becomes: What’s next?
Surely winning in the playoffs is important, and that’s what new GM Ken Holland has been focused on all summer. Has he made the right roster moves over the past few months to help the team get over a postseason hump that’s plagued them four straight seasons? Only time will tell.
Before any more playoff games take place, though, first comes the regular season. Following another painful playoff loss to the Oilers — in a series where LA was ahead 2-0 and had a lead in Game 3 — Hiller is being brought back for another year behind the bench. And one of the key reasons cited by management is they felt he had earned it after guiding LA to the aforementioned 105-point campaign.
Which is why this projection caught our eye:
Over nearly 60 seasons in the NHL, no Kings team has ever had back-to-back 100-point seasons. It’s never happened. Not once.
They’ve come close on a few occasions. In fact, the past four seasons — under former GM Rob Blake — have been the most successful stretch ever experienced by the organization. In 2021-22, the Kings had 99 points. They followed that up with 104 points (2022-23), 99 points (2023-24), and last season’s 105 points. That’s nearly a 102-point average over four years. Still, never 100 points in back-to-back seasons.
Under Dean Lombardi, the Kings also came close. Leading into the team’s first Stanley Cup in June 2012, LA posted 101 points in 2010, followed by 98- and 95-point campaigns. After Darryl Sutter took over behind the bench, he helped produce a 100-point season in 2013-14, followed by regular seasons of 95 and 102 points. Of course, a drop off to 86 points the following year was one of the key factors in Sutter and Lombardi being let go in April 2017.
Prior to that run — going all the way back to the Fabulous Forum and the team’s inception in 1967 — the Kings had never put together back-to-back seasons of more than 92 points.
So, the next question becom
es — ‘Wait just a minute; how accurate is this forecast for 2025-26?’
For starters, JFresh Hockey is one of the most trusted sources of hockey analytics and has been for several years. What about data modeling at the team level?
Well, among all the major resources who published similar forecasts, he came in first place last season — and has been one of the better resources over the past five years.
For clarity, he noted that the model uses “current depth charts” from NHLRosters (which is essentially the data from PuckPedia). When looking over that information, they’re currently projecting Sammy Helenius as LA’s fourth line center. That’s the only change from our projected Kings lineup, which lists Alex Turcotte at 4C.
JFresh later when on to explain that goal differential is one of the best indicators of a team’s performance. That’s been a key fact discussed on King Of The Podcast in recent years also. If analytics aren’t for you, that’s an easy number to look at because it’s listed in the standings, right next to a team’s point total. It sort of speaks to the ‘strength’ of the team, regardless of their point totals.
For more of JFresh’s work, be sure to check out the full site: AdvancedHockeyStats.com
In addition to possibly creating a little regular season history for the franchise, JFresh’s projections also point one other glaring possibility. The Kings and Oilers just might be destined for a fifth straight first round matchup.
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