Yes, it’s that time of the year again. With the Stanley Cup Playoffs over for the Kings, attention in LA has turned to things like the upcoming NHL Draft, Development Camp, and the signing of prospects.
We’ll go in reverse order here.
For those unfamiliar, basic Draft rules limit how long an NHL team holds the rights of a player selected — and it’s largely dictated by which league or country they’re drafted from. This also gets a little tricky at times; say for example, a Russian player comes over to the OHL and plays the final 35 games of their Draft season. That impacts what happens next.
Most of this was covered in greater detail in an article here, where we looked at everything from junior hockey to college and Europe:
In simplistic terms, there would be three major groups of players:
Major Junior (CHL) — Teams own their rights for two years.
U.S. College (NCAA) — Teams own rights until the player leaves school.
European Leagues (not KHL) — Teams own their rights for four years.
In the case of LA, their rights are about to expire on a pair of college players. As we reported back in March, the team is not expected to offer contracts to defensemen Braden Doyle (Northeastern) or Ben Meehan (Umass Lowell).
Moving forward, they will still hold the rights to four other college players from this past season; with all returning to school next year: Kenny Connors (UMass), Jack Hughes (Boston Univ.), Jared Wright (Denver Univ.), and Ryan Conmy (Univ. of New Hampshire). All four are expected to participate in Dev Camp this summer. This is the only time college players can attend camp with their respective NHL clubs, i.e. they aren’t eligible to attend Rookie Camp in September.
At this point in time, Connors and Wright are almost surely going to be signed to NHL contracts when they eventually decide to turn pro. The former will most likely be leaving UMass after the 2024-25 season. Meanwhile, Wright just won the National Championship and had a stellar sophomore season. After originally being selected in the sixth round (2022), he has continually exceeded expectations along the way. There will be a lot of eyes on him at Dev Camp once again.
Conmy, another sixth round pick, was one of the top freshmen in the country this season, recording 31 points in 34 games).
To close out the college conversation, the Kings will see at least two additional prospects join the NCAA ranks come the fall semester. Defenseman Jack Sparks will be starting up at Michigan State and goaltender Hampton Slukynsky heads off to Northern Michigan.
There could be even a few more college prospects in the Kings pool, depending upon who they select in June at the 2024 NHL Draft.
Moving on to European players, we’re expecting the Kings to not offer contracts to forward Kasper Simontaival or goaltender Juho Markkanen before the June 1 deadline.
However, the Kings will be signing their fourth player from that 2020 Draft class when they officially announce a deal with forward Aatu Jamsen — that could come in the next few days. Originally selected in the seventh round, he’s been one of the real bright spots at Dev Camp and Rookie Camps the past few years. His team made it to the Liiga finals in Finland this season and his play was a big reason why. Jamsen is in LA this week for medicals, as he missed some time during the playoffs due to a lower body injury. They’ll get that checked out and once he’s given clearance an Entry Level Contract should be in the works.
Speaking of being in town, LA’s top forward prospect from last summer’s Draft, Koehn Ziemmer, is due to arrive in SoCal this week, as well. While there was talk of him possibly joining the Ontario Reign for their AHL Calder Cup Playoff run, that no longer seems to be on the table. Instead, he will be evaluated by medical staff to get an update on his recovery from a serious ankle injury suffered last November. Ziemmer did eventually return to action in late March.
Ironically, Ziemmer had just signed his ELC just a few weeks before the injury. Now recovered, he’s expected to join the Kings for Dev Camp this summer.
Ah yes, camp…
Look for the Kings to hold a somewhat shorter than usual Dev Camp this year. While it will most likely be announced as a three-day affair — running July 1-3 — players will actually start to arrive on Sunday, June 30 for check-in meetings, etc.
We’ll have a full schedule and roster out later next month, including an early look at some of the UFA invitees.
One little teaser, though, regarding Kings prospects who will attend Dev Camp. We’re hearing there is a very good chance a left shot defenseman who has not previously been over for camp will likely be making his debut at the 2024 festivities. If it all comes together, that will be a very intriguing situation to watch. He’s still under contract to his other club for one more season, yet this could be step one of a long journey to bring him into the fold in 2025. More on that in the weeks ahead.
Next month we’ll also have our annual NHL Draft preview article posted, full of our expectations heading into the two-day event (last year’s article is linked below for your reference). In the meantime, we’ll continue publishing Draft Preview Profile articles on various players each week. The latest in that series featured one of Ziemmer’s WHL teammates, Terik Parascak — and can be found here. Other potential picks already profiled include Cayden Lindstrom, Adam Jiricek, and Tij Iginla.
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