With the NHL Draft about a week away and now all teams fully in offseason mode, action will start to pick up, and that was the case on Thursday night. The Los Angeles Kings' division rival Seattle Kraken agreed to a trade with the Dallas Stars for Mason Marchment.
The trade included a 2025 fourth-round pick and a 2026 third-round pick from Seattle to Dallas for the left wing. The Stars were in a tough position as they were up against the salary cap, especially after agreeing to an extension with Matt Duchene.
This trade clearly indicates that the Stars were just trying to clear salary, and they have now freed up about $4.5 million for this upcoming season. Marchment was in the final year of his four-year contract and will be a free agent next offseason.
LA Kings should have jumped at this trade for Mason Marchment
Even looking back at last season at the trade deadline, the Kings were looking for a goal-scoring left wing. They in theory still have that need as they haven't addressed it yet and Marchment would have been the perfect player to address it.
He has had 20+ goals each of the past two seasons and has had 100 total points during that span. Marchment is also a big forward who brings some physicality with 465 hits in 302 career games. He has a reasonable AAV that would have fit in the Kings' salary cap and still allowed them to make additional moves in July.
If the Kings had gotten this deal done, they would have also blocked a division rival from getting better. This is now the second trade the past few weeks where a team from the Pacific Division has gotten better as the Ducks traded with the New York Rangers for Chris Kreider.
The most likely reason the Kings didn't get involved in this kind of trade is that they are saving salary cap for something bigger. They have been linked to Mitch Marner, and still hopeful they can re-sign Vladislav Gavrikov.
However, if they miss out on both of those this is a trade that will give the Kings some regret over the course of the upcoming season.