Los Angeles Kings

The Los Angeles Kings are a professional hockey club playing in the Pacific Division of the National Hockey Leagues' (NHL) Western Conference. Located in Los Angeles, the team was brought into the league during the 1967 expansion, which brought an end to the "original six" era and doubled the league from six to twelve teams. Similar to other expansion teams, the Los Angeles Kings struggled out of expansion and would not win a conference championship until 1993. Since then, the team has gone on to win the conference championship and the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014. The Los Angeles Kings play out of the Crypto.com Arena (fka Staples Center) in downtown Los Angeles after having played in The Forum. They share the rink with the Los Angeles Lakers, as they shared The Forum before.

The Crypto.com Arena, out of which the Los Angeles Kings play.

The Los Angeles Kings were awarded an expansion franchise in 1966 during Clarence Campbell and the NHL's search to expand the league from six to a dozen teams. This expansion saw numerous cities jockeying for a franchise, with cities including Cleveland, Buffalo, Vancouver, Louisville, and Baltimore being passed over in favor of the Minnesota North Stars, Oakland Seals, St. Louis Blues, Philadelpia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Los Angeles Kings. Some of those original expansion teams would eventually end up in other cities, especially as they struggled through their early seasons and failed to find success with their potential fan bases.

For Jack Kent Cooke, the Los Angeles Kings brought hockey to the beautiful beaches of southern California. Cooke was already an owner of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association; as a Canadian from Hamilton, Ontario, he wanted to bring hockey to a new market where he could share his passion for hockey. He named the team the "Kings" because he wanted the team to have a royal air. To add to that air, the Kings wore purple and gold. The purple color would be officially named "Forum blue" after Cooke built The Forum, known by locals as "The Fabulous Forum," where the team would play for thirty-two seasons.

Further, to work to ingratiate the players picked in expansion—which did not include many big names—Cooke came up with an idea to give the players colorful nicknames to create buzz around the players and help to glitz the team up to better fit in "Tinseltown." This strategy saw the likes of Eddie "The Jet" Joyal, Eddie "The Entertainer" Shack, "Cowboy" Bill Flett, Juha "Whitey" Widing, and Real "Frenchy" Lemieux, among others.

Jack Kent Cooke brought the Los Angeles Kings into the NHL. As the original owner of the team, he continued ownership until 1979, at which time he sold The Forum, the Kings, and the Lakers to Dr. Jerry Buss. Buss purchased the group more for basketball and found himself quite unlike other NHL owners. Under his ownership, the Lakers went on to win ten championships. However, for the Kings, his ownership was not as successful, as the team posted an overall losing game percentage and only saw the playoffs in four seasons. However, in one of those seasons, in 1980–1981, Los Angeles recorded their best record yet, with 43 wins, 24 losses, and 13 ties before being upset in the playoffs.

Recognizing the need for something, Bruce McNall, a minority owner of the Kings, took over as owner of the team starting in 1989, and he would be part of bringing Wayne Gretzky to the team. Under McNall, the team posted an overall winning record and reached the playoffs five times in six seasons, even reaching the Stanley Cup Finals, although the team was unable to bring home the ultimate trophy.

In 1995, ownership shifted to Jeffrey Sudikoff and Joseph Cohen. They were owners for a single season before Philip Anschutz took over ownership in 1996. Anschutz continues to be the owner of the Crypto.com Arena (formerly known as the Staples Center), where the Los Angeles Kings have played since 1999, and the Los Angeles Lakers. Under his ownership, the Kings have been able to secure two Stanley Cups.

The original L.A. Kings "Forum Blue" and gold jersey.

When the Los Angeles Kings entered the league, they did so wearing a Forum blue (purple) and gold uniform. The original design had a straightforward design, featuring monochrome striping on the shoulders and tail, as well as purple pants with white and gold trim. White trim would later be added to the numbers, names, and a white tail stripe. There was a point when the team wore gold jerseys with gold pants and a variation of the original crown logo.

The L.A. Kings made slight changes to their original jersey.

From 1980 to 1988, the Kings modified their jersey to include a contrasting shoulder yoke that extended from sleeve to sleeve; white added to the socks, the tail stripes, and at the bottom of the yoke; and the color was removed from the banks. Names and numbers of the jerseys were also modified to reflect the standard NHL block lettering.

Wayne Gretzky in the silver and black "chevron" jersey.

The Kings made a radical change in 1988, when they moved away from Forum blue and gold in favor of black and silver. The new uniforms did not deviate in design much from their predecessor, but the primary logo was changed, and the shoulder yokes were changed to sleeve stripes. The logo was changed from a crown to a silver chevron with a stylized "Kings" word-mark in the middle.

The infamous "Burger King" jersey.

During this jersey's lifespan, a third jersey was introduced, which has since become infamous as the "Burger King" jersey. This jersey came during a period when the NHL and jersey suppliers were playing around with a sublimation coloring technique, which allowed them faded colors and brought back Forum blue and gold with a logo of a bearded figure wearing a golden crown often compared to the mascot of the fast food burger chain Burger King. The jersey was quickly retired.

The purple returns to L.A.

In 1998, the Kings went through another uniform redesign. The chevron logo was ditched in favor of a new crest—a vague shield design with two crossed hockey sticks over the shield. Three emblems were on the shield—a sun in the top right corner, a crown in the top left corner, and a lion in the bottom center while it sported "LA" and "KINGS" word-marks on top and bottom. The team also reintroduced purple to the jersey, although of a darker color than the original Forum blue alongside black and silver.

The jerseys were redesigned as well, with thick purple shoulder yokes trimmed in silver and black, a similar purple trimmed in black and silver sleeve stripe, and a similar stripe at the bottom of the uniform, which included a "Los Angeles" word-mark.

Reebok redesign of the L.A. Kings jersey.

In 1999, they introduced a third logo of a purple and black crown, which was worn on a solid purple jersey. The crown became the main logo. For a while, this was on a similar jersey as they had introduced in 1998 before the jerseys were redesigned in 2007. The redesign maintained the silver, black, and purple color scheme, but removed the lower stripe on the jersey bottom while keeping the Los Angeles word-mark. This redesign came under the Reebok Edge uniform system, which redesigned jerseys across the league.

Kings' captain Anze Kopitar in the "shiny" alternate.

In 2008, the Kings introduced a new third jersey. The jersey went back to the black and silver color scheme and introduced a new crest, with "LA" over a crown on a shield. The jersey was devoid of purple, had silver piping down the sleeves, and included a white sleeve stripe. This alternate became the team's primary jersey in 2011, as the team moved away from the purple. The jersey went through some slight redesigns, with the Kings introducing a grey third jersey at different periods, and introducing a "shiny" jersey, which returned the silver chevron to the jersey in a shiny silver color and paired them with shiny silver helmets.

The first season for the Los Angeles Kings began with some frustration. Founder Jack Kent Cooke wanted the new team to play at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, where the Los Angeles Lakers played, but the arena had already entered into an agreement with the WHL's Los Angeles Blades, who had been founded in the owners' failed attempt to land an NHL franchise, and in the WHL's attempt to turn itself into a major league. This led to the construction of The Forum.

The Forum.

However, the construction of The Forum would not be complete at the beginning of the team's inaugural season. This left the Kings to open their first season at Long Beach Arena in Long Beach. Their first game, on October 14, 1967, saw the team defeat their expansion cousin, Philadelphia Flyers, 4–2. By December 1967, The Forum finally opened with a game against the Flyers again, but this time the Flyers shut the Kings out 2–0.

L.A. Kings during their inaugural season.

The inaugural team was headlined by Terry Sawchuk, who at the time of the 1967 Expansion Draft was thirty-eight years old and a legendary goaltender who already had won four Stanley Cups and earned 100 shutouts in his career. He would add to those totals in his first year with the Kings and earn a record of 11 wins, 14 losses, and 6 ties. However, the rest of the Kings' roster was fairly lean and led to Cooke's use of nicknames to brand his new NHL team. The Kings finished their first season with a record of 31 wins, 33 losses, and 10 ties, which would be one of the better records of an NHL expansion team.

The remainder of the 1960s were unremarkable for the Los Angeles Kings. They entered the 1970s acquiring future Hall of Famer Bob Pulford from the Toronto Maple Leafs, in exchange for Garry Monahan and Brian Murphy. A seasoned veteran who had won four Stanley Cups as a member of the Leafs, Pulford brought leadership and a sense of legitimacy and respect into the team's lineup. Pulford eventually retired after the 1971–1972 season and came back as a head coach of the team in the 1972–1973 season.

L.A. Kings forward Butch Goring.

Where Pulford could not help the team on the ice, he helped the team behind the bench. Under his coaching, the Kings posted a then-team-best record of 42 wins, 17 losses, and 21 ties in 1974–1975. Much of the success can be attributed to the goaltending of Rogatien Vachon, who went on to be a hall-of-famer, and the play of forwards Butch Goring, Mike Murphy, and Bob Nevin. In 1975, the Kings bolstered their lineup through a trade with the Detroit Red Wings, with the Kings receiving superstar Marcel Dionne and Bart Crashley.

While Crashley would only play four games in a Kings uniform, Dionne went on to play just short of twelve seasons for the Kings franchise, becoming the first Kings player to score fifty goals in an NHL season (which he accomplished in six seasons). However, the Kings would not break through in the playoffs. Pulford left as a coach after the 1976–1977 season, and general manager Jake Milford would leave as well. This led the team to struggle in the 1977–1978 season, where they were swept out of the first round of the playoffs. The season saw Vachon leave to free agency, and Bob Berry came on to coach the team.

L.A. Kings star forward Marcel Dionne.

One of the more impactful coaching decisions Bob Berry made came when he placed the veteran Dionne with second-year player Dave Taylor and career minor-leaguer Charlie Simmer. The line worked, with Simmer being a gritty player capable of battling along the boards, Taylor offering playmaking capability, and Dionne being a natural goal scorer, allowing the line to dominate other lines. The line went on to be known as the "Triple Crown Line" and would be one of the higher-scoring line combinations in NHL history. In their first season together, the line combined for 328 points, and in the next season, they became the first-line combination where each member surpassed 100 points in a single season.

The 1980s also began with the sale of the Los Angeles Kings to Jerry Buss. Under his ownership, the team brought in a group of young talent, with players such as Bernie Nicholls, Larry Murphy, Jim Fox, Mark Hardy, Jay Wells, Steve Bozek, Doug Smith, Brian McLellan, Grant Ledyard, and Garry Galley forming the young team. Many of these players would become fan favorites in 1982 during a come-from-behind overtime playoff game against the Edmonton Oilers—who were a juggernaut of the period—which would go on to be called "The Miracle on Manchester."

L.A. Kings' Luc Robitaille.

The middle of the 1980s saw another group of talented rookies join the Los Angeles Kings: Luc Robitaille, Jimmy Carson, and Steve Duchesne. Robitaille went on to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and has been considered by many to be one of the all-time greatest Kings players. Unfortunately, Robitaille and Duchesne would have to go to Detroit, at the end of their careers, to finally win a Stanley Cup. The Kings, despite the strength of their team, continued to fail to get to the Stanley Cup finals through the 1980s. Bruce McNall took control of the Los Angeles Kings ownership in 1987 and sought to build a successful team.

The Kings continued to try and work their lineup to find success, trading Dionne to the New York Rangers in 1987. However, the biggest of these trades, and one of the biggest trades in NHL history, came in 1988 when the Los Angeles Kings acquired Wayne Gretzky from the Edmonton Oilers, sending the Oilers Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, and first-round draft picks in the 1989, 1991, and 1993 NHL Entry Drafts and cash in return for Gretzky, Mike Krushelnyski, and Marty McSorely.

Wayne Gretzky's trade to L.A. shocked the hockey world.

The trade stunned the hockey world. No one thought a team would trade Gretzky, often known by his moniker "The Great One," but he had been traded. In his 1988–1989 season, his first with the Los Angeles Kings, Gretzky set a team record with 168 points—with 54 goals and 114 assists—and he would lead the Kings to the playoffs in his first five seasons in Los Angeles.

L.A. Kings battle with Canadiens during 1993 Stanley Cup Finals.

The 1990s saw the Kings finally break into the Stanley Cup Finals. Despite superstar Gretzky leading the team, the Kings went into the 1992–1993 season with rookie head coach Barry Melrose guiding the team to 88 points and underdog status going into the playoffs. They managed to reach the finals, where they faced the Montreal Canadiens. Despite Gretzky's incredible playoff performance, which saw him reach 40 points in 24 games, the Kings lost in five games to the Canadiens, who won their twenty-fourth Stanley Cup.

The remainder of the decade would fall short of the early decade. The Kings failed to make the playoffs for the next several seasons, spanning from 1993 to 1999. The team eventually sank into bankruptcy and was sold to Philip F. Anschutz and Edward P. Roski, who entered the team into a rebuilding phase. This phase began with the move of appointing Dave Taylor to the position of general manager. Further, the Staples Center was opened in 1999 (now the Crypto.com Arena) and became the new home for the Kings. The team also acquired a new training facility in El Segundo, California. So, while the Kings' on-ice play into the new millennium was not great, the transition was occurring to turn the Kings into a better organization as a whole.

The 1999-2000 L.A. Kings failed to make the playoffs.

Beginning with the 1999–2000 season, the Kings began a streak of playoff appearances under coach Andy Murray and a young team led by players such as Ziggy Palffy, Lubomir Visnovsky, and Mattias Norstrom. However, after an opening-round playoff loss in 2001–2002, Los Angeles would fail to make the playoffs for the next six seasons, the longest playoff drought in franchise history. The postseason misses led to a revolving door of coaches, which saw the likes of Andy Murray, John Torchetti, Marc Crawford, and Terry Murray come and go. Players would also come and go in similar fashion, with stars like Martin Straka, Jozef Stumpel, Pavol Demitra, Jeremy Roenick, and Kyle Calder all playing with little to no success.

However, once again, as the on-ice results failed to impress, the off-ice work of the Kings' front office and scouting paved the way for a better future. Dean Lombardi took over as the team's general manager in 2006. Endowed with a keen eye for player talent and the ability to develop that talent, Lombardi played to his strengths and tried to build the team through the NHL Entry Draft. This saw players such as Ale Martinez, Wayne Simmonds, Slava Voynov, Jordan Nolan, Kyle Clifford, Jonathan Bernier, and Drew Doughty all drafted by the Kings before the decade came to a close. This built on young players, including Jonathan Quick and Anze Kopitar, who had been drafted prior to Lombardi taking over.

Unfortunately, for Kings fans, the fruit of the rebuilding through the 2000s was not realized until the 2010s. However, once it was realized, it was able to bring the Kings to the promised land. This began at the end of the 2011–2012 season, when the team went on a tear at the end of the season, posting 12 wins in their final 19 games to squeak into the playoffs. The Kings secured the final playoff spot in their second-to-last game of the season.

Once the playoffs were underway, the Kings beat the Vancouver Canucks in five games, the St. Louis Blues in four games, and Phoenix Coyotes in five games to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals. The Kings were led by the goaltending of Quick and the scoring of Kopitar, Doughty, Justin Williams, and Dustin Brown. The Kings met the New Jersey Devils in the Finals, who they beat in six games en route to the Kings' first Stanley Cup championship in the club's history. Jonathan Quick was recognized for his stellar play and was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP.

L.A. Kings players celebrate their defeat of the New Jersey Devils, securing the Stanley Cup.

The Kings tried to repeat and set out to defend their title in 2012–2013. They once more made it to the semi-finals before losing to the Chicago Blackhawks in overtime of game five. The team was more motivated going into the 2013–2014 season, enlisting newcomers like Marian Gaborik, Robyn Regehr, Tanner Pearson, and Tyler Toffoli to help lead the team to a regular season record of 46 wins, 28 losses, 2 overtime losses, and 6 ties.

Once into the playoffs, the Los Angeles Kings were up against difficult competition and went to seven games in three consecutive teams to eliminate the San Jose Sharks, Anaheim Ducks, and Chicago Blackhawks to get back to the Stanley Cup Finals. The Kings met the New York Rangers once in the Stanley Cup Finals, where they took five games to beat the Rangers and secure not only the second Stanley Cup for the franchise, but the second Stanley Cup for this iteration of the team, proving they were not just a "one-trick pony" but one of the better teams of the 2010s.

L.A. Kings celebrate their second Cup win, this time over the Rangers.

However, the final half of the 2010s failed to bring more success to the Kings. The team struggled to remain competitive, failing to make the playoffs in the 2014–2015, 2016–2017, and 2018–2019 seasons, while suffering opening-round losses during the years they made the payoffs. This left the Kings in a position of mediocrity, and the team committed to, if not quite a rebuild, a retool of the roster, seeing some players traded while stalwarts such as Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty remained on the team, helping with the development of the young players the team drafted.

Starting the decade in a rebuild, the Kings missed the playoffs in the 2019–2020 season; but as soon as the 2020–2021 season, with some good drafting, savvy trading, and by keeping the veterans who had long ties to the franchise, the Kings returned to the playoffs. And they would stay in the playoffs in the 2022–2023 season. Both playoffs saw the Los Angeles Kings face Connor McDavid and his Edmonton Oilers, taking the juggernaut Oilers to seven and six games, respectively, and making many believe the team has the potential to be a Stanley Cup contending team as soon as the 2023–2024 season.