LOS ANGELES –– On a busy Tuesday morning for the Kings, they announced that one center would remain with the organization, another would be shipping out to the Midwest and a third would be arriving to Southern California imminently.
Before they signed Samuel Helenius to a two-year contract extension worth $875,000 per season, they completed a trade with the St. Louis Blues that swapped Akil Thomas for Nikita Alexandrov.
Helenius, 23, played 50 games for the Kings during the 2024-25 season, but saw his usage diminish dramatically during the playoffs and the first third of this campaign. The towering Finn – his listed height of 6-foot-6 might undersell his stature – averaged under four minutes per night, less than half his regular-season ice time, during the playoffs. This year, he’s played in just three games, most recently logging a meager 3:25 in a Nov. 24 win over Ottawa.
The 2021 second-rounder will have the opportunity to continue his development and challenge former No. 5 overall pick Alex Turcotte for the fourth-line center role, a competition thinned a bit by Thomas’ departure.
Thomas, 25, was selected by the Kings in 2018’s second round. Two years later, he scored the biggest goal of his career to earn gold for Canada at the World Junior Championships. His journey has been anything but linear, however, as shoulder injuries cost him significant development time.
He notched seven points in 32 NHL games, 25 of which came last season. He has yet to appear for the parent club in 2025-26, but has 13 points in 19 games for the American Hockey League’s Ontario Reign.
Alexandrov, a German-born Russian who can play center and left wing, is only nine months younger than Thomas, almost identically sized and posts very similar numbers. He has put up nine points in 51 NHL games, all of which he played between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 campaigns. This season, he has 14 points in 18 contests for the AHL’s Peoria Rivermen.
He and Thomas crossed paths before. At those same 2020 World Juniors, he picked up eight points while representing Russia, the silver medalist whose consolation prize came courtesy of Thomas’ golden goal.