{"id":728539,"date":"2026-06-11T00:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T00:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/728539\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T00:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T00:39:08","slug":"laviolette-envisions-offensive-upgrade-in-taking-over-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/728539\/","title":{"rendered":"Laviolette envisions offensive upgrade in taking over Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addition to Panarin, Los Angeles also has proven productive wingers such as Adrian Kempe<\/a> and Kevin Fiala<\/a>. However, the organization\u2019s center depth is limited following the retirement of stalwart Anze Kopitar<\/a>, and its defensive corps struggled to create offense this past season.<\/p>\n

Brandt Clarke<\/a> (eight goals, 32 assists) and Drew Doughty<\/a> (five goals, 18 assists) led the Kings defensemen in scoring and were the only two who had at least five goals. Clarke, a pending restricted free agent, was the lone Los Angeles defenseman with more than 25 points.<\/p>\n

Laviolette believes he can get more out of the group, which also includes Joel Edmundson<\/a> (two goals, 21 assists), Mikey Anderson<\/a> (four goals, 16 assists), \u00a0Brian Dumoulin<\/a>\u00a0(two goals, 15 assists) and Cody Ceci<\/a>\u00a0(one goal, eight assists).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think just because somebody\u2019s touted as a defensive defenseman, I don\u2019t think that they should not add to the backside of the rush, or that they should not try to get involved in the offensive, or that they should not try to bring their skills into the game,\u201d Laviolette said.<\/p>\n

If the Kings can generate more offense, it could help them end a run of five consecutive first-round playoff exits.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles has failed to win a postseason series in seven tries since claiming the Stanley Cup in 2014, which made Laviolette\u2019s playoff pedigree equally appealing to general manager Ken Holland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in Laviolette\u2019s second season in 2006. The Flyers reached the Cup Final in Laviolette\u2019s first season in 2010, and the Predators did it in 2017 in his second season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at his resume, all the teams that he\u2019s been with, the impact that he\u2019s had on these teams the first couple of years, right off the bat, and it\u2019s a hard League to win,\u201d Holland said. \u201cGoing to the Stanley Cup Finals three times with three different teams, also winning a Calder Cup at the American Hockey League level, pro hockey\u2019s hard to win, and he\u2019s done a lot of winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holland said Laviolette would have the authority to choose his own coaching staff, but it will not include Smith.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s decided to move on,\u201d Holland said of Smith, who went 11-6-6 as interim coach and had term remaining on his contract after initially joining Los Angeles as an assistant on Feb. 5, 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In addition to Panarin, Los Angeles also has proven productive wingers such as Adrian Kempe and Kevin Fiala.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-728539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}