NHL Prospect Pool Overview '26-27: Strong Draft Helps Rebuild Los Angeles Kings Pipeline
The Los Angeles Kings have seen their prospect pool trend in the wrong direction, but a strong 2026 NHL draft class has strengthened their pool and helped them begin to trend in the right direction. Tony Ferrari takes a closer look.
Video Transcript
The once incredibly strong Los Angeles Kings prospect pool isn't quite where it used to be.
A few years ago, everyone looked at the Kings as this plethora of talent, this burgeoning group of players who was ready to make the NHL and push the Kings into a tier of highly competitive teams, and it was gonna be a great time.
Quinton Byfield, Brandt Clarke, they both made it to the NHL, and they've both been very good.
Other players, like Akil Thomas, Martin Chromiak, and quite a few others never really made it.
Alex Turcotte has dealt with injuries up and down throughout his career, and although he's been in the NHL lately, he's not really the high impact player everyone once thought he could be.
So the Kings have needed an injection of youth, and this year's NHL draft, seeing 11 players go to them, was a great chance for that to happen.
They drafted a number of really intriguing players, Elton Hermansen chief among them.
It was such a fun draft for them because it gave them a bunch of talent that they desperately needed in their prospect pool.
So many of the prospects that we once looked at, like Francesco Pinelli and a few others, have gotten a little bit older in the prospect age.
They're 22, 23, even 24 now, and we're not seeing the, the progression we once hoped to see.
So they needed this young talent to come in.
Now, they took five players in the top 100, and even after that, they had a number of really intriguing players.
Vertis Svenska is one of the most interesting players in the entire draft class because this kid was a highly mobile defenseman that showed a lot of puck movement flashes, some really solid defensive decisions.
And at the latter half of the season, they moved him out to the wing.
And while he did look good on the wing, this kid's a really solid defender, and if he can round out his game a little bit more and refine some of the finer aspects, he could be a really solid player moving forward.
And the Kings got him well outside the top 100, and that could be arguably the steal of the second half of the draft.
Now in the top half, they got a player like Elton Hermansen, who's one of the most skilled players in this draft class, purely one of the most entertaining players as well.
He's able to wow you with a lacrosse goal and produce some really high-end play-making moments.
This is a kid that when his game is on, he is one of the most entertaining players in the entire draft class.
So the Kings getting him well in, into the second half of the first round was a massive steal in my opinion.
But they drafted a number of other really solid players, and they have a few guys in their prospect pool that have been there for a while that are really, really intriguing, particularly in net.
They have a number of really solid goalie prospects, and this year we'll be seeing Carter George and Hampton Slykinski, both in the AHL, looking to be splitting the net and possibly being two of the best young goalies in all of hockey.
So check out the Kings prospect pool overview at thehockeynews.com as we dive deep into the LA Kings prospect pool and everything that could be coming to the LA Kings in a short while.
