In the early years of the current contention window, the Los Angeles Kings made some aggressive moves to improve their roster lineup, which ended up sacrificing valuable future draft assets to bring in players who could make an immediate impact.
That strategy by the Kings' front office left the franchise without a first-round pick in back-to-back NHL Entry Drafts in 2022 and 2023. The Kings traded their 2022 first-round draft pick, along with defenseman Brock Faber, to the Minnesota Wild to acquire forward Kevin Fiala.
And then the Kings dealt their 2023 first-round draft pick to the Columbus Blue Jackets as part of the trade that brought defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov and goalie Joonas Korpisalo to Los Angeles.
What recent NHL redrafts reveal about the Los Angeles Kings' two major trades
Now that enough time has passed to re-evaluate both draft classes, recent re-drafts from The Athletic give an interesting opportunity to revisit those two major trades with the benefit of hindsight.
Looking back, the question isn't necessarily whether the Kings won or lost these trades; it depends on whether those 2022 and 2023 draft classes have developed to the degree where the returns justified the costs.
Back in the summer of 2022, the Kings and Wild agreed to a trade that would shift the trajectory of both franchises. Los Angeles and Minnesota agreed to a huge trade that saw the Kings receive Fiala and the Wild get Faber and the 19th overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft.
While Faber has been great in hindsight for the Wild, the fact of the matter was that the Kings had too many right-shot defensemen and it made sense at the time to move him. The Kings needed more offensive firepower in the forward lineup at the time, too, which made Fiala a natural fit in Los Angeles in the top-six.
Fiala didn't miss a beat scoring the puck for the Kings, scoring over 20 goals and 72 total points while representing Los Angeles in the NHL All-Star Game in his first season playing in Southern California in 2022-23. In the four seasons he's played in Los Angeles, Fiala has registered over 100 goals and 245 total points in 288 regular season games.
The first-round draft pick traded to Minnesota became the 19th overall selection, which the Wild used to pick Swedish winger Liam Ohgren. Three years later, The Athletic's 2022 redraft of the first round moved Ohgren down seven spots to No. 26 overall.
The Athletic projected Ohgren's role to be potentially a bottom-six secondary scorer, but with room for possibly more upside in the future. The Wild traded Ohgren to the Vancouver Canucks this past regular season in the trade that brought superstar defenseman Quinn Hughes to Minnesota.
Faber is probably still the asset from this trade that Kings fans wish they still had in hindsight. Giving up that 19th overall pick is less painful now, looking back on the trade.
A year later, the Kings once again gave up a first-round draft pick to strengthen the roster to win immediately. The Kings traded the No. 22 overall pick to the Blue Jackets, which was then flipped to the Philadelphia Flyers, who eventually picked defenseman Oliver Bonk in 2023.
The Kings received Gavrikov and Korpisalo to bolster the roster for a playoff push in the 2022-23 season. Korpisalo was just a short-term rental for the Kings, and Gavrikov became a top-four defenseman beyond 2023.
Korpisalo started all six playoff games for the Kings in the first round of the 2023 playoffs against the Edmonton Oilers. Gavrikov had the more lasting impact on the Kings, becoming a steady and reliable top-four defenseman for multiple seasons in Los Angeles.
In this past few years, Bonk has developed into a quality defensive prospect since being selected 22nd overall in the first round, but his stock hasn't risen compared to the rest of the talented 2023 draft class. In The Athletic's recent three-year redraft, Bonk fell out of the first round altogether.
That makes the Kings' decision to sacrifice that first-round pick easier to defend. The Kings received immediate roster help from Korpisalo, and even more significantly, multiple seasons from a top-four defenseman in Gavrikov instead of holding onto that pick.
In hindsight, neither redraft makes the Kings look that much worse for trading the first-round picks themselves. Ohgren fell multiple spots in this redraft from The Athletic and Bonk was outside the first round. Meanwhile, the Kings acquired multiple highly productive seasons from Fiala offensively and multiple seasons from a top-four defenseman in Gavrikov.
The only caveat that really sticks out here is Faber. The biggest source of regret probably isn't any of the first-round picks, but instead the fact that the Kings gave up a quality top-pairing defenseman.
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