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Kings begin key road trip to keep playoff hopes alive

March 23, 2026

EL SEGUNDO — The Kings’ playoff hopes have been like the villain in a slasher film, rising unexpectedly from the dead over and over.

As they embarked on a two-game jaunt north of the border, they trailed the percolating Nashville Predators by two points for the final wild-card spot in the West and the right to play the dominant Colorado Avalanche in Round 1 of the postseason.

They’ll face the Calgary Flames on Tuesday and the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday, the two worst teams by record in the Pacific Division, with Vancouver placing a staggering 15 points behind the next lowest-performing clubs in the NHL.

“They’re Pacific games. It doesn’t matter where teams are in the standings; these are big points for us, every game coming down (the stretch), so we’re treating every game like a playoff game,” said center Quinton Byfield to reporters after he had a goal and an assist in an overtime loss to the Utah Mammoth on Sunday.

The Kings plucked a point from that affair thanks to a third-period tally from winger Artemi Panarin, who scored their only goal a night earlier against the Buffalo Sabres. He leads the Kings in scoring since making his debut on Feb. 25 with 17 points, four more than linemate Adrian Kempe. He sits tied for eighth in points league-wide during that span, and the Kings’ power play, which had been dangling near the bottom of the league (29th of 32 teams), has placed eighth since his arrival.

“All 32 teams in the league would want him on their power play,” defenseman Brandt Clarke said. “He’s so dynamic, the plays he makes and the split-second reads he makes when a lane opens up, it’s pretty remarkable. He’s been such a catalyst for us since he got here.”

Even Sunday, he scored mere seconds after Utah’s only penalty of the match expired, a de facto power-play goal that he deposited from an improbable angle off a broken play.

“A lot of skilled players make a lot of plays and play on the outside and make a lot of tricky things happen, but a lot of stuff doesn’t accumulate to points,” said interim coach D.J. Smith of Panarin. “He understands: get the puck to the net, bodies at the net, bang pucks in, a goal’s a goal. I don’t think he needs it to be flashy; he understands that he needs to shoot to score.”

Clarke said Panarin, 34, had been communicative and supportive since arriving from Manhattan in a trade that took place just before the Olympic break.

“He understands the game. His hockey IQ’s so high, he realizes that if other guys take their moments, it also allows him to create his space, too,” Clarke said. “He wants other guys to do what they can do, too, so it forces the other team to respect other players and it gets him more open to make plays.”

While the Kings added Panarin and center Scott Laughton via trade, they were also sellers this season, shipping out three forwards from their early-season mix. The Canucks and Flames have been better defined as teams looking to regroup, reassess and rebuild.

Most notably, the Canucks parted ways with Quinn Hughes, sending him to Minnesota in a blockbuster deal that overshadowed even the Panarin acquisition. They also sent Kiefer Sherwood to San Jose, among other forward-facing moves.

The Flames thinned out their roster significantly as well, parting ways with Rasmus Andersson, Nazem Kadri and MacKenzie Weegar in deals that moved their top two defensemen and their best center onto greener pastures.

Orange County Register

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Kings begin key road trip to keep playoff hopes alive

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