Should everything go according to plan, the Los Angeles Kings are expected to sign Otto Salin to an entry-level contract this weekend (Twitter Link). Salin has reportedly already landed in Los Angeles, and he’s expected to join the Kings’ AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign, for the remainder of the season.
Kings Rumors
Kings To Recall Jeff Malott
According to John Hoven of Mayor’s Manor, the Kings will recall forward Jeff Malott before their game Thursday with the Avalanche. L.A. has $1.757MM in current cap space, per PuckPedia, enough to fit Malott’s $775K cap hit without another transaction.
Malott was signed to a two-year, partial two-way deal last summer, and this will be his first stint on Los Angeles’ NHL roster this season. If he plays, it will be Malott’s second career NHL appearance after debuting with the Jets in the 2021-22 campaign.
The 28-year-old left-winger comes up after Tanner Jeannot sustained an upper-body injury last night against the Rangers, a game for which Alex Turcotte was also a late scratch due to an undisclosed injury. With only Akil Thomas on hand as an extra forward, Malott’s summons gives them another option to insert into the lineup if a third injury strikes their forward group.
What Malott lacks in NHL experience, he compensates for with his 6’4″, 201-lb frame and an increasingly strong minor-league track record. An alternate captain with AHL Ontario, he has 23-28–51 in 61 appearances to rank third in scoring. The hard-nosed winger also leads the Reign with 80 PIMs and ranks fourth with a +17 rating. His stay on the NHL roster will likely only last as long as the Kings’ injury troubles, but he’s an acceptable replacement for fourth-line minutes if necessary.
Kings Sign Jared Woolley To Entry-Level Contract
The Kings announced that they have signed defenseman Jared Woolley to a three-year, entry-level contract beginning next season. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Woolley, 19, was a sixth-round pick by the Kings (No. 164 overall) last summer. The 6’5″, 207-lb lefty has spent the past two seasons with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, where he won a league championship as a rookie in 2023-24.
A two-way defender by trade, Woolley had a coming-out party this year. After playing a limited role on last year’s London squad, he saw expanded minutes this year and rose to the occasion. He posted a respectable 9-19–28 scoring line in 68 games, and his +49 rating ranked third on the club. He also racked up 75 PIMs.
He didn’t check in at all when Scott Wheeler of The Athletic ranked the Kings’ prospect pool earlier this year, so it’s safe to say public scouts remain conservative on NHL expectations for Woolley. Nonetheless, the Kings liked his season enough to get a deal done now and avoid potentially running out the clock on his signing rights, which were set to expire in June 2026.
Woolley’s deal is eligible for a one-year entry-level slide. Assuming he plays fewer than 10 NHL games next season, overwhelmingly the likeliest scenario, his deal will defer to the 2026-27 campaign and run through 2028-29. He’ll still be paid any signing bonuses owed to him for the 2025-26 campaign, lowering the cap hit of his deal slightly when it does go into effect. He’s too young for a full-time AHL assignment next year and will undoubtedly return to London for a third OHL season. If that’s the outcome, he won’t count against L.A.’s 50-contract limit.
Prospect Notes: Kirsanov, Pinelli, Hage
With the end of the season nearing, news surrounding some of the league’s top prospects is beginning to ramp up. The Los Angeles Kings are the focal point of the latest updates, after news that Russian defender Kirill Kirsanov could sign with the team at the end of the season, per Scott Coffman of Mayor’s Manor.
The Kings drafted Kirsanov in the third round of the 2021 NHL Draft, just months after his rookie season in Russia’s KHL came to a close. He tallied just three points in 29 games in his first pro year, but showed upside as a heavy and physical presence in the defensive end. Kirsanov continued to plant his feet in the KHL in the subsequent three seasons, routinely rivaling 25 games and a few points each year. He’s found a bit more stride with Novgorod Torpedo this season, with a career-high seven points in a career-high 34 KHL games – though his best impact remains close to his end boards. It will be the six-foot-two, 220-pound frame that Los Angeles looks forward to in signing the 22-year-old Russian, as they look to find the hefty compliment for impactful youngsters like Brandt Clarke and Jordan Spence.
Other notes across the prospect world:
- The Columbus Blue Jackets have assigned 2023 fourth-round draft pick Luca Pinelli to the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters. Pinelli’s OHL season with the Ottawa 67s came to an end on Sunday. He closed the season with a team-leading 37 goals and 71 points in 52 games. That’s just narrowly ahead of his scoring pace last season, when he potted 48 goals and 82 points in 68 games. But Pinelli’s story tood tall this year, as he led a 67s roster that struggled to score when he was off the ice. Ottawa managed just 205 goals as a team, good for third-lowest in the OHL. Pinelli is a speedy puck-handler who pushes transition – and carries surprising heft and strength on the puck for his five-foot-nine frame. He’ll be an interesting prospect to watch in the pros, after scoring 252 points in 246 career games, and four seasons, in the OHL.
- Top Montreal Canadiens prospect Michael Hage has decided to return to the University of Michigan for his sophomore season, per Marco D’Amico of RG Media. Montreal drafted Hage 21st overall in the 2024 NHL Draft, after he scored 33 goals and 75 points in 54 USHL games as the Chicago Steel’s top center. He followed that performance with 13 goals and 34 points in 33 games in Michigan’s top-role this year – good for second in scoring on the Wolverines behind 23-year-old junior T.J. Hughes’ 38 points. Hughes is viewed by many as a top college free agent this summer. His signing could open a clear path for Hage to become Michigan’s true star scorer next year. On top of many returnees on a young roster, Hage will be joined by 2025 NHL Draft prospects Cole McKinney and Aidan Park in 2025-26.
Kings Honor Former GM Lombardi
- On Monday, the Los Angeles Kings honored former president and GM Dean Lombardi, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. After his first stint as a general manager fizzled out with the Sharks, Lombardi oversaw tremendous success in his time in LA, which resulted in two Stanley Cup winning teams. Lombardi saw success in developing draft picks (perhaps most notably with Drew Doughty) but also made aggressive trades for veterans like Mike Richards and Jeff Carter. Since being let go by the team in 2017, Lombardi has served as an executive with the Flyers. During Monday’s celebration, as Friedman notes, Lombardi took time to state that he believes the game is getting too expensive for some children to play. He called it a “grassroots problem” that excludes some athletes from being able to pick up the game.
Kings Sign Joe Hicketts To Two-Year Extension
The Los Angeles Kings are keeping one of their organizational depth defensemen around for another two years. The Kings announced they’ve signed defenseman Joe Hicketts to a two-year, two-way contract worth $1.55MM ($775K AAV) at the NHL level.
Hicketts has never been a household name as far as prospects go. Still, he made some noise in his first professional season after signing with the Detroit Red Wings as an undrafted free agent ahead of the 2016-17 season.
The Kamloops, British Columbia native debuted scoring seven goals and 34 points in 73 games with the Red Wings AHL affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins. He didn’t earn any individual awards, but Hicketts finished seventh in rookie scoring among defensemen and aided in the Griffins’ championship run in the Calder Cup playoffs scoring one goal and eight points in 19 contests.
Unfortunately, his rookie campaign would be his best year-long performance in the Red Wings organization. Thanks to injuries and players being moved off the team as Detroit began their current rebuild, Hicketts earned the opportunity to debut in the NHL. From January 2018 to November 2019, Hicketts tallied five assists in 22 contests for the Red Wings averaging 18:13 of ice time per game.
He hasn’t played in the NHL since. From 2021 to 2023, Hicketts enjoyed a two-year stint with the Minnesota Wild’s affiliate, the Iowa Wild, scoring 18 goals and 79 points in 133 games. The 2022-23 AHL season has been his best statistical performance up to this point in his professional career, as he finished fifth in scoring among blueliners.
The nine-year AHL veteran is in his second season with the Kings’ affiliate, the Ontario Reign, and his first as the team’s captain. He’s tied for first with Reilly Walsh as the highest-scoring defenseman on the Reign with three goals and 27 points in 52 contests. Although it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, Ontario is expected to make the playoffs this year allowing Hicketts to enjoy the sixth postseason push of his career.
Greentree Suspended For Final Two OHL Regular Season Games
- Kings prospect Liam Greentree was suspended for two games today by the OHL for a checking from behind incident on Sunday, the league announced (Twitter link). The 19-year-old was the 26th pick last June and sits tied for second in the league in points (with 119) while being fourth in goals (49) and second in assists (70). Windsor only has two games remaining in the regular season so he won’t be able to move up those leaderboards even further.
Ilya Kovalchuk Announces Retirement
Longtime NHL winger Ilya Kovalchuk has officially confirmed the end of his playing career, per Hockey News Hub on X.
Now 41, Kovalchuk is one of the most decorated wingers of the 21st century – even if his NHL career saw more than a few twists and turns. A dominant teenager with Spartak Moscow, then of the second-tier Russian league at the turn of the century, he was the first overall pick by the Thrashers in the 2001 draft.
Kovalchuk was the centerpiece of the fledgling Atlanta squad for seven and a half seasons, finishing second in Calder Trophy voting in his rookie year behind teammate Dany Heatley but capturing the league’s goal-scoring title with 41 in the 2003-04 campaign. He remained one of the league’s premier goal-scorers past the 2005 lockout, eclipsing the 50-goal mark twice with the Thrashers, although his throne as the league’s top left-wing sniper was quickly taken from him by countryman Alex Ovechkin.
In 2009-10, amid his sixth consecutive 40-goal campaign, the Thrashers dealt Kovalchuk to the Devils for what turned out to be an incredibly underwhelming return in retrospect – although they did flip the first-round pick they received in the deal to the Blackhawks to acquire longtime top-pair defenseman Dustin Byfuglien, even if those rewards were reaped after the franchise relocated to Winnipeg to become the second iteration of the Jets.
Of course, Kovalchuk’s time in New Jersey was incredibly tumultuous. Set to be a UFA in the summer of 2010, he returned to New Jersey on a record-breaking 17-year, $102MM contract that was quickly invalidated by the league for being too frontloaded. While the Devils and Kovalchuk agreed to a revised 15-year, $100MM deal, they were stripped of a first and third-round pick and were fined $3MM by the league.
After all that, Kovalchuk only played three seasons of the deal before abruptly retiring from the NHL, leaving $77MM in cash on the table to terminate his deal and return home. He played six seasons with SKA St. Petersburg of the Kontinental Hockey League, including a stint during the 2013 lockout. He was unsurprisingly the KHL’s premier offensive talent during that timeframe, posting 138-189–327 in 298 games with SKA, winning the Gagarin Cup in 2015 and 2017 and scoring the championship-clinching goal both times.
Upon leading the KHL in scoring in 2017-18 with 63 points in 53 games and winning an Olympic MVP and Gold Medal, Kovalchuk opted to make an NHL comeback and landed a hefty three-year, $18.75MM deal with the Kings. Then in his mid-30s, he underwhelmed in L.A. and managed just 43 points in 81 games over a season and a half before he again opted to walk away from the money remaining on his deal midway through the 2019-20 campaign. He finished out that season with the Canadiens and Capitals – the former signed him to a one-year deal following his termination and flipped him to Washington at the deadline. After amassing 10-16–26 in 46 games split between the three clubs, Kovalchuk headed back to Russia with Avangard Omsk.
“Kovy” finished the shortened 2020-21 season with 17 points in 16 games for Avangard en route to a third Gagarin Cup championship. He stepped away into an off-ice role after that, even serving as Russia’s general manager at the 2022 Winter Olympics, but returned to the sheet where his career began with Spartak last season. He notched 4-4–8 in 20 games and went pointless in five playoff games before opting not to re-sign last summer.
Kovalchuk played 13 NHL seasons, posting a 443-433–876 scoring line in 926 games with a -146 rating. He averaged a remarkable 21:15 per game throughout his career, including a few seasons north of 24 with the Devils. For his first NHL stint from 2001 to 2013, no one scored more than Kovalchuk’s 417 goals. He remained the Jets’ franchise all-time goals leader until Mark Scheifele finally surpassed him last month.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Evening Notes: Gavrikov, Marchand, Hedman, Jokiharju
Los Angeles Kings general manager Rob Blake spoke in-depth about his efforts to extend defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov in a post-Trade Deadline media availability. Blake shared that keeping Gavrikov around is a top priority for the team, but finding a new deal could take some time after Gavrikov changed agents in February. But even with the flip, Blake reiterated that both the team and the player are confident a deal can get done.
Gavrikov has been a top defender for the Kings. He has averaged nearly 24 minutes of ice time on a nightly basis, good for second on the team behind Drew Doughty’s average of 25:32. Gavrikov has brought a shutdown presence to those premier moments. He leads the team with 117 blocked shots, to go with 21 points, 14 penalty minutes, a plus-eight, and 34 hits in 60 games. He’s averaged north of 20 minutes of ice time in every season since his 2021-22 campaign with the Columbus Blue Jackets. That season stands as Gavrikov’s career-year, headlined by a career-high 33 points and 68 penalty minutes in 80 games. The 29-year-old defenseman has slowed his scoring since those days, but looks capable of carrying his brick wall style well into his 30s. The Kings will look to bank on that growth on his next extension, which will likely carry Gavrikov to the sunset years of his career.
Other notes from around the league:
- The Boston Bruins offered captain Brad Marchand a three-year extension before opting to trade him to the Florida Panthers, per ESPN’s Emily Kaplan. Kaplan goes on to add that Boston’s original extension offers to the 36-year-old Marchand were stuck at two years, but that the team expanded their offer in the waning minutes to try and secure a deal. Ultimately, the money wasn’t right for Marchand – and he opted to pursue a move to the Panthers instead. Marchand will have a chance to sign a more preferable deal when he enters unrestricted free agency this summer. The Bruins lost their second-highest scorer in dealing away Marchand, who has 21 goals and 47 points in 61 games on the year. He’ll be a major addition for the Florida Panthers, but will first need to overcome a shoulder injury that’s expected to hold him out for a few weeks.
- Tampa Bay Lightning captain Victor Hedman missed the team’s Saturday night matchup against the Boston Bruins and has been listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury. Hedman has made a major impact on the Bolts lineup over his recent stretch, with five points in his last five games and seven points in his last 10 games. J.J. Moser elevates to the top line in Hedman’s absence, while Emil Martinsen Lilleberg draws back onto Tampa Bay’s third pair. Moser has 10 points and a plus-13 in 35 games this season, while Lilleberg has 14 points, 85 penalty minutes, and a minus-seven in 58 games.
- The newest Boston Bruins defenseman Henri Jokiharju told reporters that he had requested a trade away from the Buffalo Sabres prior to his deadline-day move. He also clamored about his positive relationships with new Boston teammates Casey Mittelstadt and Joonas Korpisalo. Jokiharju joins the Bruins after six tough seasons with the Buffalo Sabres. He earned top-pair minutes at points during his Sabres tenure, as the team struggled to staff a hardy right-defense corp – but Jokiharju could never make much of his minutes. He set a career-high of 20 points in 74 games last season, but had just six points in 42 games with Buffalo this year. Jokiharju should fill a much more manageable bottom-four role in Boston, playing behind shutdown defender Andrew Peeke at least.
Kings Sign Andre Lee To Two-Year Extension
The Kings have taken care of one of their pending restricted free agents up front early. The team announced that they’ve signed winger Andre Lee to a two-year contract extension that runs through the 2026-27 season. The deal will carry an AAV of $775K, the league minimum salary.
The 24-year-old was a seventh-round pick of the Kings back in 2019, going 188th overall. He has seen his first taste of NHL action this season, getting into 19 games with Los Angeles in five different stints with the big club, making him the sixth Los Angeles pick from that draft class to reach the top level. Over that stretch, he has a goal and two assists along with 36 hits in 9:10 per night of playing time.
Lee has spent the bulk of his professional career in the minors with Ontario, one that spans parts of four seasons. In 29 games this season, the 6’5 winger has three goals and six assists, bringing his career totals to 17 and 16 respectively across 134 contests.
This is Lee’s final season of waiver exemption so he will have to either stick with the Kings in the fall after training camp or be placed on waivers to return to the Reign in 2025-26. He’s playing on a one-year, two-way contract this year and while the team release doesn’t specify the terms, it wouldn’t be surprising if this extension carries a one-way salary, giving Los Angeles some capable back-of-roster depth at the lowest price possible.