I'm starting to think maybe it was a mistake for LA to start making moves to be competitive sooner rather than later. I suppose Byfield is at least a PPG for the Reign, but it's never a good sign when a prospect plays a majority of the previous season in the bigs and then goes back to the minors the next year. Not even sure how confident I feel about Turcotte being a reliable 2C in the future. Tyler Madden and Lias Andersson don't look like they're ever going to be anything more than tweeners. Maybe there is still something to be found in Akil Thomas and Samuel Helenius, but probably not an overwhelming amount of upside to catapult them into everyday NHLers. I can see Kupari being a solid 3C, but nothing more. Maybe it's time to turn sights to Francesco Pinelli to reinforce the middle of the ice potentially going forward. So there may be a log jam down the middle going forward, but no definitive candidate to be a befitting no. 1 after Kopitar is gone.

Aidan Dudas doesn't look like he's going to get many NHL games in his career if any. Need to see more to be able to determine if there is anything there with Martin Chromiak. Samuel ****emo is running out of time to make an impact at the NHL level before he becomes waivers eligible, time is of the essence with him. Arvidsson's deal expires in 2024, so there will be need for another impact winger if he's too expensive to re-sign or begins to regress. On top of that, I'm hearing rumors that Iafallo is on the trade market to be able to fit Trevor Moore's new extension in.

I won't get into the whole left side of defense debacle, but at least they have a surplus of right handed guys, which there is always a market for, just a question of when management can orchestrate a right for left trade on the back end I guess.

Overall, it looks promising right now what the Kings are building, I'm just not sure if it will be enough to contend with considering the way some of their assets are trending. The fanbase is going to be pretty irritated if the current regime comes up short after so many years of patient, calculated development.