Jordan Spence entered this season with the Los Angeles Kings with higher expectations after a solid season the year prior. The expected expanded role only grew when Drew Doughty suffered his preseason injury and over the course of the season, Spence met the challenge.
He would finish the season playing in 79 regular season games and had four goals, 24 assists, and 28 points with a +/- of +23 which were all career-highs. He also had 77 blocks (22 more than the prior season) and 80 hits (13 more than the prior season).
Even when Doughty returned, Spence didn't lose his spot on this team like Brandt Clarke did and really held that role all the way through. It seemed like whoever he was paired with they were producing at a high level as three of the top four pairs with over 100 minutes in xGoals % included Spence. The top pair was him and Jacob Moverare at 61%, followed by Edmundson and Spence at 60.5% and then Gavrikov and Spence at 57.9%.
The biggest question mark coming out of this season is why he saw his role decrease so much during the playoffs. After finishing the regular season with an average of 16:47 in ice time, he saw only 7:31 per game during the playoffs and was even a healthy scratch for one game.
Grade for Jordan Spence's 2024-25 season with the Los Angeles Kings: B
The lack of ice time in the playoffs is hard to blame Jordan Spence as it seemed to be Jim Hiller's decision and it wasn't only him who was impacted. When looking back at the playoffs, it was clearly a mistake by the Kings' head coach and it will be interesting what his role is moving forward with the Kings.
Spence is set to be a restricted free agent after this season and in an offseason that the Kings could look to make some moves, one of those could be trading the young defenseman to add some help for the forwards.