Kings fans have a right to feel frustrated. As the 2025-26 season gets underway, and the franchise’s two Stanley Cup titles get smaller in the rear view mirror, the sour taste of four straight first-round playoff eliminations – all to the same team, the Edmonton Oilers – just won’t go away.
Worse, last season was the one when those demons were to be exorcised, but it wasn’t. Their 105 regular-season points tied a team record, their 31-6-4 home record was the best in club history … but after taking a 2-0 series lead on the Oilers, they lost the next four. They’ve now gone 11 seasons since their last playoff series victory – in 2014, which ended with the Stanley Cup being brought out to center ice.
The antidote to those springtime miseries? Simple. Win the Cup. And, said club president Luc Robitaille, it’s certainly doable.
“I would say if there’s 10 teams in our league that have a shot at it, we’re one of them,” Robitaille said in a phone conversation earlier this week, noting that new General Manager Ken Holland addressed some depth issues after the Kings lost out on the summer’s prime free agent, Mitch Marner, who signed with Vegas.
“We kind of knew that it (was going to) happen,” Robitaille said. “I think we’ve added more experience and more depth, and that’s what it takes in our league to get all the way through.”
Mind you, this is not Luc saying the Kings will win it all. He’s been around this game too many years, as a player and an executive, and he understands the weird bounces a puck can take. But sometimes that recalibration can have a significant impact.
Holland, the former Detroit and Edmonton GM who was hired after Rob Blake stepped away from the position, added veteran defensemen Brian Dumoulin and Cody Ceci, goaltender Anton Forsberg, and right wings Joel Armia and Corey Perry, the latter still a few weeks away from competition after undergoing knee surgery on Sept. 13, though he got back on the ice this week.
(In other words, Kings fans, it will be a few weeks before your conflicting emotions over cheering the former Ducks agitator kick in.)
Holland’s Detroit teams won three Stanley Cup titles, and his Oilers teams … well, the Kings have seen that bunch way too closely in recent springs. Mainly, his is a championship mindset.
“What he brings to this organization is a message that we’re trying to win it all,” Robitaille said. “Because he’s not coming at a stage of his career – he’s already in the Hall of Fame – to just try to make the playoffs or to try to make it look good. A guy like that comes into your franchise because you’re trying to get to the finishing line.
“When you hear him talk, that’s (what) he’s constantly talking about: Let’s try to finish first in our division. … We still gotta get in the playoffs first, but then after that let’s get a team that can get us through the playoffs. That’s his message always. So when you hear that when you’re a player, you understand the message (is) not just to get in the playoffs.”
Robitaille gave credit to Blake, who took over as GM in April of 2017 after the Dean Lombardi-Darryl Sutter tandem had run its course. The Kings got back to the postseason that first season, with the John Stevens-coached team swept by Vegas in the first round, but they didn’t return until the spring of 2022. At that point, young players got significant exposure to the playoffs.
“We were trying to win it all,” Robitaille said. “It didn’t happen, but it certainly has been a good thing for our young guys that have been part of it for three, four years to at least have had some playoff experience and to see what it takes to get through, because we haven’t gotten through anything yet.”
As for the coach, Jim Hiller received a good bit of criticism last spring – for being overly conservative, for using a short bench in the playoffs, and particularly for an unsuccessful challenge of an Evander Kane goal in Game 3 in Edmonton that might have changed the momentum of the series.
“I believe he’s got the group believing in what they do,” Robitaille said. “And … he’s a great coach behind the bench. He knows how to handle a bench and run guys over (the boards). Yeah, there was some criticism in the playoffs, but you can’t blame him. We played the whole year with 11 forwards and seven D, and he basically did the same in the playoffs.
“I think he’s done a really good job for us.”
One more Kings storyline will hover over this season. Anže Kopitar, the captain, will play his 20th and final campaign, but Robitaille said he didn’t think there would be a “Win One For Kopi” theme, unless the Kings get to the Stanley Cup Final.
“You get to a Final and you get Game 7 – yeah, we should, we can say it then,” he said, adding: “He’s still our No. 1 center. He’s a very impactful player. He’s not one of those guys that’s going to be sitting on the sideline and waiting for us to win it for him.”
There are 26 individuals with Kings ties in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. Of all of those honored, five players are integral to any history of the Kings: Rogie Vachon, Marcel Dionne, Wayne Gretzky, Blake and Robitaille himself. Kopitar is a key part of that story and ultimately will be part of the Hall, likely along with Drew Doughty, Dustin Brown and Jonathan Quick as well.
So where does Kopitar fit in that pantheon?
“I believe he ranks right there as the top guy,” Robitaille said. “The fact he’s going to end up finishing his career with, I think, the most amount of games or second-most (1,454 going into this season), the most amount of points (with 1,278 before Tuesday night’s opener against Colorado, Kopitar is 29 behind franchise leader Marcel Dionne) … We didn’t get two Stanley Cups (without him) being the leader that he was, scoring big goals. I think, for me, he’s right there, the top guy that played for this franchise.”
Considering the source, and Robitaille’s own accomplishments (557 goals as a King, No. 1 in franchise history), that’s a pretty solid assessment.
jalexander@scng.com