{"id":109673,"date":"2025-12-26T17:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/109673\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T17:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:15:11","slug":"adrian-kempe-explains-why-he-chose-the-kings-over-a-bigger-payday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/109673\/","title":{"rendered":"Adrian Kempe explains why he chose the Kings over a bigger payday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Untold riches awaited Adrian Kempe<\/a> as one of the NHL\u2019s top unrestricted free agents next summer.<\/p>\n

Mitch Marner<\/a>, among last summer\u2019s top targets, got $12 million a season from Vegas in a sign-and-trade deal with Toronto hours before he would have hit the open market. With more goals than Marner over the last four full seasons, how much could Kempe \u2014 in his prime at 29 \u2014 have demanded?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll never know. Because whatever amount it might have been, Kempe decided it wasn\u2019t worth more than his happiness. So last month he signed an eight-year contract extension<\/a> worth a reported $85 million with the Kings<\/a> that figures to keep him with the only organization he\u2019s ever known for the rest of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s probably some teams that would have given me offers. But I never really got to the part where that was something that I wanted,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m really happy here. Always have been. Family-wise, the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there was never anything else in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a mind that is apparently at ease now that Kempe\u2019s hockey future has been determined. With 13 goals and a team-high 17 assists, he leads the offensively challenged Kings with 30 points and seven of those goals have come in the 17 games since he signed his extension.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s done little to lift the team, which has lost six of their last seven heading into Saturday\u2019s game with the Ducks. The last time the Kings had a seven-game stretch this bad it cost coach Todd McLellan his job<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not happy, but I really believe in this group,\u201d said winger Kevin Fiala<\/a>, who shares the team goal-scoring lead with Kempe. \u201cI really believe this is a great team, great players. We just have to kind of find the game. And not just for some minutes, not even for one game, 60 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to go for a stretch here, get some wins in a row. Start feeling good, start playing good.\u201d<\/p>\n

That might be tough given how the Kings will finish 2025. After Saturday\u2019s home game with the resurgent Ducks<\/a>, the team travels to Colorado to face the Avalanche, who lead the NHL in points<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If the Kings are to turn things around, they will have to jump start an offense which is second-to-last in the NHL, averaging 2.52 goals a game, and a power play that has converted on less than 14% of its chances, also 31st in the 32-team league. And the responsibility for making that happen probably will fall to Kempe, who has scored as many goals over the past four full seasons as Sidney Crosby<\/a> and has just six fewer assists than Alex Ovechkin<\/a>, keeping the Swedish Olympian in heady company.<\/p>\n

\"Kings <\/p>\n

Kings forward Adrian Kempe shoots during a win over the Winnipeg Jets on Nov. 4.<\/p>\n

(Harry How \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cAdrian is a bit of a streaky scorer,\u201d coach Jim Hiller said. \u201cA lot of his recent goals are goals that we\u2019ve seen him score before, where he\u2019s either beating someone with speed, a nice deke.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo to me it\u2019s the type of goals he\u2019s scoring right now that\u2019s got me encouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all that\u2019s encouraging. Kempe, a quick and physical two-way forward, is averaging a career-high 19:18 of ice time per game and is on pace to score 30 goals and top 68 points for a second straight season.<\/p>\n

With captain Anze Kopitar retiring at the end of the season<\/a> and defenseman Drew Doughty<\/a> in the penultimate year of his contract, re-signing Kempe, the team\u2019s future leader on and off the ice, was at the top of Ken Holland\u2019s to-do list when he took over as general manager last spring. And while the length of the contract he offered Kempe never wavered, the price did.<\/p>\n

In the end, media reports said Kempe blinked first, telling agent J.P. Berry to lower his salary demands to get a deal done, eventually accepting an average annual value of $10.625 million beginning next season. That nearly doubles the $5.5 million he\u2019ll earn this season and makes him the fifth-best-paid Swede in the NHL, according to the Sweden Herald. But it\u2019s less than he would have gotten on the open market.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it says two things,\u201d Hiller said of the deal. \u201cWhat it says about the franchise is that the player was known, was drafted here, was developed here.\u201d<\/p>\n

What it says about Kempe, he continued, is that he values that loyalty more than money.<\/p>\n

\"Kings <\/p>\n

Kings forward Adrian Kempe against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 18.<\/p>\n

(Chris O\u2019Meara \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he probably appreciates the time and energy spent on his career, getting him to where he was,\u201d Hiller said. \u201cNow it\u2019s his choice and he says, \u2018You know what? I want to stay in place.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not alone. A number of the Kings\u2019 recent cornerstone players \u2014 among them Dustin Brown<\/a>, Kopitar and Doughty \u2014 spent their entire NHL careers with the team. If he avoids serious injury and a major dropoff in play, Kempe will almost certainly rank among the top five in franchise history in games, goals and points when his contract runs out.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the long-term return on investment Holland and the Kings are hoping for. For the time being, however, they\u2019re counting on Kempe to save a season that seems in danger of spiraling.<\/p>\n

Like Fiala, Kempe believes in the Kings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I weren\u2019t happy here, obviously I would consider not playing here,\u201d Kempe said. \u201cWe have a good core. We have a good group of younger guys coming up. I think we\u2019re in a good spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously you have to take that in consideration, too, when you sign a new deal. You want to play on a good team, you want to win cups.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s hard to put a price tag on that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Untold riches awaited Adrian Kempe as one of the NHL\u2019s top unrestricted free agents next summer. Mitch Marner,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[14993,4017,6709,6264,6223,423,2194,58858,664,48,52,51,8844,47,50,49,404,1417,4637,278,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-109673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-adrian-kempe","9":"tag-contract","10":"tag-deal","11":"tag-ducks","12":"tag-end","13":"tag-game","14":"tag-goal","15":"tag-kempe","16":"tag-king","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-la-headlines","19":"tag-la-news","20":"tag-last-time","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","23":"tag-los-angeles-news","24":"tag-nhl","25":"tag-point","26":"tag-power-play","27":"tag-season","28":"tag-team"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}