The LA Kings and forward Adrian Kempe have agreed to an eight-year contract extension, carrying an AAV or $10,625,000, running through the end of the 2033-34 season.

A deal that needed to get done. Kempe is a building-block player for the Kings, in the prime of his career, and seeing him leave as a free agent would have been a very big blow to the organization. The deal got done in plenty of time and it sees Kempe commit what could be the remainder of his career to the organization that drafted him, a contract that sees the team’s leading scorer remain around, removing any potential distraction his pending free agency could have caused down the road. A huge signing for the Kings. More below.

Ken Holland on Adrian Kempe Signing
We are thrilled to have Adrian signed for the next eight seasons. He is an elite competitor who’s developed into one of the League’s most dynamic two-way forwards, and his growth since joining the Kings organization has been tremendous. Adrian’s presence both as a player and a leader is incredibly valuable to the team. Throughout this process, both sides were committed to finding a structure that reflects Adrian’s importance to us while keeping our long-term goals of building a team capable of contending every season in mind. We’re excited to have Adrian remain a core part of our organization for years to come.

Instant Analysis
BOOM!

There it is.

Kempe and the Kings have come to terms on an eight-year contract extension that makes him an LA King for what could be the remainder of his career.

It’s been a couple of months now of everyone saying the same things.

General Manager Ken Holland has maintained that he wanted to sign Kempe to an eight-year contract extension. He confirmed that the eight-year term was on the table from the start and that the gap in negotiation was always down to dollars. Still, he stressed the importance of Kempe and never wavered from his design to sign Kempe to a long-term deal.

Kempe always maintained that he has loved being a Los Angeles King and that he wanted to sign a new contract with the Kings organization. He never wavered from that desire, the same way that Holland maintained that he wanted Kempe to stay. At the end of the day, when push came to shove, I understand that Kempe took less to get the deal done with an eight-year term. It’s one thing to say that you want to stay and another to show it. Kempe showed it by being willing to budge on his number to find a deal that made both sides very happy.

Ultimately, the negotiations did get caught up a bit in other contracts around the NHL. In speaking with Holland earlier this week, he spoke about how other contracts around the NHL did shift Kempe’s market in an upward direction but he also pointed out the positive side of that, which is that it set comparable deals to negotiate off of. Holland and Kempe’s agent, J.P. Berry met in person this week, a meeting which Holland said helped to make progress towards a resolution. Seems like that face-to-face tme helped to get the job done. Three days after speaking with Holland, a contract is signed.

The contract ultimately agreed to is higher than what the Kings might have originally imagined but it’s also lower than what Kempe’s camp was asking for. In the end, the final move was that Kempe left some money on the table to get the deal done today. That’s important.

The Kings have, at times, taken some flak for a narrative that bigger-ticket players don’t want to sign in Los Angeles. Kempe signing for less money than he could’ve gotten by dragging out the negotiations even further, or even by testing the market, disputes that. At the end of the day, that’s what got the deal over the line. The Kings compromised to get the number to a certain point but it was Kempe who got the deal over the line as he decided to take a little bit less, a number both sides were comfortable with, to get a deal signed.

Kempe was drafted and developed by the Kings. He’s one of the best examples of the importance of patience when it comes to player development. Imagine if the Kings had given up on a player who had played five seasons in the NHL and had scored a career-high 14 goals, exceeding 30 points exactly once. They’d certainly have missed out. Kempe required some time to become the player he is today but he’s now thought of as one of the more dangerous goalscorers in the NHL and he’s added a lot more to his game as he’s grown offensively. Now, in signing a big-ticket extension, Kempe becomes the team’s core forward up front, in place for the Kings to hopefully build around to continue to bolster their top-end talent.

Going forward, Kempe will be the team’s highest paid forward and second-highest paid player next season, behind defenseman Drew Doughty. When Doughty’s contract ends next summer, I think the expectation is he will take less to stay, which makes Kempe the team’s highest-paid player, barring any other big moves between now and then. Kempe solidifies RW1 for the foreseeable future and the Kings still have plenty of salary-cap space to handle their next business, which is the process of replacing center Anze Kopitar in the long haul. Per PuckPedia, the Kings have more than $23 million in cap space for next season, with 16 players signed. Brandt Clarke needs a new deal, which will merit a raise, but there’s a lot of room there to potentially target an impact center as the Kings look to retool at that position behind Quinton Byfield. Having a top-tier winger in Kempe under contract helps make that process easier to go through. As Holland’s quote at the top mentions, having Kempe take just a bit less gives the Kings a bit more flexibility as needed to try and land additional impact players to the team.

The Los Angeles Kings and Adrian Kempe have agreed to terms a new contract, sources told ESPN.

— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) November 16, 2025

From the team’s official release –

The LA Kings have signed forward Adrian Kempe to an eight-year contract extension worth an average annual value (AAV) of $10,625,000 through the 2033-34 season.

Kempe, 29, has a team-leading 19 points (6-13=19), two overtime goals and a plus-4 rating in 19 games played this season. The winger recorded a career-long seven-game road point streak (5-6=11) from Oct. 11 – Oct. 28, 2025, which included two overtime goals in consecutive games on Oct. 21 in St. Louis and Oct. 23 in Dallas to become the first player in franchise history to net the game-winner in overtime in consecutive contests. Kempe (4-4=8) is also the first Kings skater since Wayne Gretzky (3-7=10 in 4 GP) and Luc Robitialle (4-6=10 in 5 GP) in 1992-93 to record four consecutive multi-point road games, and the first to do so with at least one goal and one assist in each game with his run from Oct. 10 –
Oct. 23, 2025.

Kempe played in 81 games for the Kings last season, recording a co-team leading 35 goals and 38 assists for a team-best 73 points (35-38=73) to mark his second consecutive 70-point campaign while eclipsing the 30-goal plateau for the third time in his career. Kempe also notched seven power-play goals, five game-winning goals and 237 shots while setting a new career-high in time-on-ice per game (TOI; 19:09 min.), the highest TOI among all Kings forwards. Kempe added a team-high four goals and 10 points (4-6=10) in six Stanely Cup Playoff games.

The 6-2, 200-pound forward hit multiple milestones last season, including notching his 400th career NHL point on April 15, 2025, in Seattle to become the 14th player in franchise history to record 400 points with the Kings, and the third active to do so behind captain Anze Kopitar (440-838=1,278) and Drew Doughty (160-526=686). Kempe also became just the sixth Kings skater in the last 30 years with four consecutive 20-goal seasons, joining Kopitar (6 from 2006-07 to 2011-12), Jeff Carter (5 from 2012-13 to 2016-17), Dustin Brown (5 from 2007-08 to 2011-12), Alex Frolov (5 from 2003-04 to 2008-09) and Ziggy Palffy (4 from 1999-00 to 2002-03).

Selected 29th overall by the Kings in the 2014 NHL Draft, Kempe has accumulated 200 goals and 220 assists for 420 points (200-220=420) in 649 career NHL games. Since his NHL debut on Feb. 16, 2017, Kempe’s 200 goals and 420 points each rank second on the team while his 220 helpers place third. Kempe has also registered nine overtime goals, 13 shorthanded goals and 1,586 shots during that time, all of which leads all team skaters, and sits second in games played (649), game-winning goals (35) and takeaways (199). Among 2014 NHL draftees, no skater has more shorthanded goals or points (18) than Kempe.

Kempe’s best goal scoring season came in the 2022-23 campaign where he tallied 41 goals as part of his first career 40-goal season and followed that up with career-marks in assists (47) and points (28-47=75) the succeeding season (2023-24) to earn the Bill Libby Memorial Award as selected by the media for the team’s Most Valuable Player.

Prior to joining the NHL ranks full-time, Kempe played parts of three seasons in the American Hockey League (AHL) with the Ontario Reign (2015-17) and Manchester Monarchs (2014-15), collecting 48 points (23-25=48) in 104 career games. He added 16 points (12-4=16) in 35 playoff games, including eight goals (8-1=9) in 17 Calder Cup Playoff outings to help guide the Monarchs to a Calder Cup Championship. Before his move to North America, Kempe skated in two seasons (2013-15) with MODO Hockey in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), registering 28 points (10-18=28) in 95 games.

The Kramfors, Sweden native has represented Sweden in seven International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) events, including four IIHF Men’s World Championships (2024 – bronze, 2021, 2019, 2018 – gold), two IIHF Men’s World Junior Championships (2016, 2015) and one IIHF Men’s Under-18 World Junior Championship (2014). Most recently, Kempe also represented Sweden at the NHL’s 2025 4 Nations Face-Off Tournament and has been named to Team Sweden for the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina.