{"id":491520,"date":"2026-03-07T15:44:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T15:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/491520\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T15:44:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T15:44:32","slug":"los-angeles-adds-depth-center-in-deadline-trade-with-maple-leafs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/491520\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles adds depth center in deadline trade with Maple Leafs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Kings made one of the biggest trades of the year, picking up Artemi Panarin<\/a>. But injuries and a coach firing after that deal may have derailed their season. The Kings sold off Corey Perry on Friday, but did make a buying move, making a trade for Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> Scott Laughton ahead of the deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cROSTER MOVE. LA Kings have acquired Scott Laughton from Toronto,\u201d The Mayor’s Manor of Sirius XM first reported.<\/p>\n

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman confirmed the news and added the return<\/a>, \u201c3rd rounder.\u201d Emily Kaplan of ESPN reported that the pick improves to a second-round pick if the Kings make the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Laughton was traded from the Philadelphia Flyers to the Maple Leafs at the 2025 NHL trade deadline<\/a>. Toronto gave up a first-round pick for Laughton, but was not able to get that back a year later. The center was a last-second move ahead of this year’s 3 p.m. deadline.<\/p>\n

The Kings are three points behind the Seattle Kraken in the Western Conference wild-card race. Captain Anze Kopitar is retiring at the end of the season, so Los Angeles is trying to give him one last playoff run. With four consecutive first-round exits coming into this season, a deep run would be huge for this core.<\/p>\n

The Maple Leafs were able to trade three forwards from their roster ahead of the deadline. They got a first-round pick and a fifth-round pick from the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Nicolas Roy on Thursday<\/a>. Then on Friday, they got two mid-round picks from the Seattle Kraken for Bobby McMann and this haul from the Kings.<\/p>\n

The Kings can re-sign Laughton now, or he will be a free agent on July 1. With Panarin locked in to a two-year extension and Kopitar’s salary coming off the books, they will have salary coming off the books. And they need centers to replace Kopitar and improve the depth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Kings made one of the biggest trades of the year, picking up Artemi Panarin. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5126],"tags":[5,186,1760,240,5303,793,145,5304,5302,4,548,31],"class_list":{"0":"post-491520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-kings","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kings","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-kings","12":"tag-lakings","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-kings","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangeleskings","17":"tag-nhl","18":"tag-nhl-trade-deadline","19":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116188667226157078","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491520","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=491520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}