{"id":484814,"date":"2026-03-04T12:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T12:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/484814\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T12:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T12:16:19","slug":"kings-circling-back-on-patrik-laine-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/484814\/","title":{"rendered":"Kings Circling Back On Patrik Laine \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Kings were reported to have a degree of interest<\/a> in Canadiens winger\u00a0Patrik Laine<\/a>\u00a0last month after losing\u00a0Kevin Fiala<\/a>\u00a0to a season-ending leg injury<\/a> at the Olympics. Those talks quickly fizzled out, but after another rash of injuries in L.A., they\u2019ve demonstrated renewed interest in the former 40-goal scorer, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

As things stand, the Kings\u2019 injury list has effectively derailed their chances of making the playoffs, even after swinging a trade for\u00a0Artemi Panarin<\/a>\u00a0last month. One of their better scoring options,\u00a0Andrei Kuzmenko<\/a>, had surgery to repair a torn meniscus<\/a> last weekend and is effectively done for the regular season. They also recently lost\u00a0Joel Armia<\/a> to injured reserve and are now dealing with an upper-body injury<\/a> to Quinton Byfield<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a third of the Kings\u2019 regular forwards unavailable, not including\u00a0Trevor Moore<\/a>, who\u2019s currently dealing with an illness. To no surprise, they\u2019re 1-3-0 coming out of the break while only averaging 2.25 goals per game. They fired head coach Jim Hiller on Sunday<\/a> and promoted associate coach D.J. Smith as the interim head coach to finish out the year, but lost 4-2 to the Avalanche in their first game under Smith last night.<\/p>\n

As things stand, the Kings are only four points out of a playoff spot with a game in hand, but have three teams \u2013 the Predators, Sharks, and Oilers \u2013 to leapfrog in that order \u2013 to get back into the picture. The crowded field leaves them with a 27.7% chance of making the playoffs at this stage, per MoneyPuck<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scoring isn\u2019t just a recent problem for the Kings, though. L.A.\u2019s offense has clicked at just 2.52 goals per game, fourth-worst in the league. Their 16.8% success rate on the power play isn\u2019t much better at 26th out of 32 teams. Panarin has yet to score since his acquisition, but does have three assists in four games.<\/p>\n

Still, the situation is untenable with Fiala and Kuzmenko now out long-term. That\u2019s led general manager Ken Holland to consider a reclamation hail-mary project like Laine, who will carry little to no acquisition cost thanks to his exorbitant $8.7MM cap hit destroying most of his trade value. The Habs, in desperate need of cap flexibility to augment their roster at the trade deadline, have been trying to move him for weeks<\/a> to no avail. He hasn\u2019t played since late October due to core muscle surgery, but has been practicing in a non-contact jersey since January, so he\u2019s on the verge of a return and could be simply held out of the lineup for trade protection at this point.<\/p>\n

Laine was a non-factor to start the year with one assist and a -3 rating in five games. He was nonetheless an effective secondary scoring presence in a more limited role in Montreal last season despite missing nearly 30 games with a left knee sprain. He had 20 goals and 33 points in 52 games for the Habs last year. That works out to a 0.38 goals per game figure that would currently lead the Kings.<\/p>\n

If healthy, the pending free agent could get a long leash in the Kings\u2019 top nine and feature on their top power-play in an effort to give them enough offense to eke out a heater over the last few weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kings were reported to have a degree of interest in Canadiens winger\u00a0Patrik Laine\u00a0last month after losing\u00a0Kevin Fiala\u00a0to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,145,21,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-484814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-los-angeles-kings","10":"tag-montreal-canadiens","11":"tag-patrik-laine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116170862398780282","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}