Why the Kings had a quieter 2025 NHL Trade Deadline
The Los Angeles Kings were relatively quiet at the 2025 NHL trade deadline, with the team’s lone addition being depth forward Andrei Kuzmenko. Despite the small upgrade, the Kings are perfect since the deadline, marking three-straight victories that have pushed the club to 34-20-9 to hold down third place in the Pacific Division.
On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk chatted about what Kings general manager Rob Blake was involved in at this year’s trade deadline.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The Kings have now won a sneaky three straight since coming out of the trade deadline. Not only that, they’re second in their division by points percentage. I was someone who was very critical of Rob Blake’s deadline, saying, ‘How could you not go and add more scoring?’ It’s a team that ranks in the bottom half when it comes to goals per game. But, three in a row. It’s not like their deadline can truly be judged on these three games. They will be judged come playoff time. But, do you think Blake just saw something in this group that maybe we’re not?
Frank Seravalli: I don’t. I think it probably came down to fit. I’ll give you some background. The Kings were extremely interested in Mikko Rantanen. But once they found out that he was not willing to re-sign in Los Angeles, and got a no, they withdrew themselves from consideration. First off, I think they were offended that Rantanen didn’t want to play in Los Angeles. I mean, who doesn’t want to live in California? But, the other part of it being, like, ‘Hey, look. We want to make a splash, but we can’t also just invent players on the marketplace.’ So, I understand why you might look at that team and think, ‘Couldn’t they have used a Brock Boeser to inject into their mix?’ And I get it, but it’s not like Boeser at this point in the season is also lighting the world on fire. So, you can’t manufacture players that are perfect fits for your team. You can only take a swing on what is actually out there. Were there other things that the Kings got up to? I didn’t hear about them. Not to say that that didn’t happen, but you can’t also force a square peg into a round hole. It’s easy to be critical, but who would you have liked to see as the fit?
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here: