{"id":657023,"date":"2026-09-06T22:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T22:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/657023\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T22:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T22:06:14","slug":"sportsnet-names-la-kings-forward-who-has-to-deliver-in-2026-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/657023\/","title":{"rendered":"Sportsnet names LA Kings forward who ‘has to deliver’ in 2026-27"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are several Los Angeles Kings players who will be facing pressure to step up and perform this upcoming season. <\/p>\n

After five straight first-round playoff exits, the Kings need multiple players to step up and help get this team over the hump if they want to make a run in the postseason in the Western Conference next spring. <\/p>\n

Yet, there is one former top-five draft pick who could have even more riding on his performance for the Kings this upcoming season. <\/p>\n

Sportsnet recently<\/a> selected young forward Alex Turcotte for the Kings in an article that named one player for each team in the Pacific Division “who has to deliver” in the upcoming 2026-27 season. <\/p>\n

Turcotte, the former No. 5 overall pick in the first round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, is entering a pivotal contract year after taking a step backward in terms of his offensive production this past season. He could be running out of opportunities to establish himself as a long-term piece in the forward group for the Kings. <\/p>\n

Alex Turcotte faces a pivotal season with the LA Kings in 2026-27<\/p>\n

While Turcotte has adapted his game well to more of a two-way focus that emphasizes defensive awareness, effort, transition, and forechecking, his development still hasn’t been as linear as Kings fans would’ve hoped when he was selected in the lottery in the first round of the 2019 draft. <\/p>\n

Sportsnet isn’t making the argument here that Turcotte is already a draft bust for the Kings. They’re explicitly making the case that Turcotte’s development has taken a bit of a different path than originally expected, and that the 25-year-old forward still has a lot of upside to potentially offer offensively. <\/p>\n

The problem for Turcotte is that he could be running out of time to reach that development ceiling offensively for the Kings. <\/p>\n

Despite Turcotte showing some signs of improving offensively in the advanced metrics this past regular season, his overall offensive numbers still regressed year-over-year in the 2025-26 season. <\/p>\n

Turcotte had more scoring opportunities this past season, ranking top three on the team in individual scoring chances and individual high-danger scoring chances, but that didn’t translate to more points being generated on the score sheet. <\/p>\n

He finished this past regular season with just three goals, 11 assists, and 14 total points in 62 games played, down from nine goals and 25 total points across 68 games played in the 2024-25 season. <\/p>\n

He’s not only trying to prove his case for earning a new contract with the Kings going into<\/a> next offseason, but he’s also working to earn an NHL roster spot going into the regular season this fall. Young forwards Sammy Helenius and Kenny Connors won’t make it easy for Turcotte to solidify a roster spot in the bottom-six in camp. <\/p>\n

The fact of the matter is that Turcotte must prove to new head coach Peter Laviolette and staff in training camp and the preseason this fall that he deserves a spot on the opening-night roster for this upcoming season. He’s definitely not guaranteed a roster spot with all of the depth and young talent the Kings have in the middle of the lineup in camp this fall. <\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are several Los Angeles Kings players who will be facing pressure to step up and perform this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5126],"tags":[5,186,1760,240,5303,793,145,5304,5302,4],"class_list":["post-657023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-kings","tag-hockey","tag-kings","tag-la","tag-la-kings","tag-lakings","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-kings","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleskings","tag-nhl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117226372397724225","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657023","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=657023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}