While, yes, the LA Kings and Tampa Bay Lightning made a trade on Wednesday, it doesn’t really feel like it in the traditional sense.
LA reacquired goaltender Pheonix Copley in exchange for future considerations. Of course, this all comes after the Kings first lost the 33-year-old netminder on waivers less than two weeks ago — just before the 2025-26 NHL regular season was set to get going.
Before closing out the Copley story in full, it’s also worth mentioning that it was a little bit of a dizzy day between the pipes for LA. Earlier in the morning it was noted that prospect Erik Portillo was being recalled from AHL Ontario in time for the Kings practice. This was a move necessitated by an apparent lower-body injury to the team’s No. 1 starter, Darcy Kuemper.
Now, to be clear, Kuemper has not been placed on injured reserve (which would officially cause him to miss games). Per coach Jim Hiller, he’s said to be day-to-day for now.
This is also eerily reminiscent of last October, when Kuemper was sidelined after Game 3 of the Kings 2024-25 campaign and didn’t return until Game 9.
In his absence that time, Copley was recalled from the Reign and only saw action in one game during that stretch. During an Oct. 16, 2024 game in Toronto, David Rittich allowed four goals on 14 shots to the Maple Leafs and Hiller replaced him with Copley midway through the second period. He went on to make 10 saves in relief and that was Copley’s only NHL action all of last season. Now, exactly one year later, he’ll put on a Kings uniform once again on Thursday when LA hosts Pittsburgh at Crypto.com Arena.
Who will Hiller opt to start in net vs. the Penguins? We’re assuming Anton Forsberg.
It’s been a roller coaster 12 months for Copley. After he was sent back down to the Reign (when Kuemper eventually was activated off IR), he went on to post a 24-17-1 record in the AHL, along with a 0.904 save percentage. That was more games than the organization had originally planned for him to play last season. However, he was thrust into more action when Portillo went down with an injury in February.
Copley was re-signed, to once again backup Portillo in Ontario this season, but was then claimed on waivers earlier this month. Now, he’s back with the Kings after today’s trade… and Portillo has been returned to the AHL after his callup earlier today for practice.
Thus, everything appears to be working out exactly as planned for prior to the Lightning getting involved. Portillo is with the Reign this season, serving as their starter. When an injury happened in LA, Copley steps in, elevating from his G3 position.
For longtime Kings fans, they remember a similar situation to all of this back in 2017. At the time, Jonathan Quick was out injured, and then-GM Dean Lombardi swung a trade with the Lightning for goalie Ben Bishop. part of the package going the other way was netminder Peter Budaj. The following year, LA made a separate deal with Tampa Bay to re-acquire Budaj.
He actually played some NHL games in Florida, unlike Copley who never saw any regular season game action with Tampa over the past two weeks (just one period of preseason play).
For those following roster and salary cap information, GM Ken Holland was able to acquire Copley without an offsetting roster move because LA only had 22 active players on their roster. Defenseman Kyle Burroughs would be the 23rd man on that group, yet he remains on IR.
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