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A closer look at the Los Angeles Kings: Canucks Pacific Previews

Originally posted on Canucksarmy | By Lachlan Irvine | Last updated Aug 8, 2025 3:51 PM ET

In today’s National Hockey League, the biggest hurdle to a playoff spot is besting the seven teams in your own division. The Vancouver Canucks’ rivals in the Pacific Division, each at different points in their team’s evolution, will try to keep Vancouver out of the postseason party. And the only way to best your competition is by knowing them.

Every day this week, we’ll be looking at each of these Pacific Division teams and how they stack up compared to the Canucks.

Today, we’re looking at the Los Angeles Kings.

So you’ve lost to the same team in the playoffs four years in a row.

The Los Angeles Kings looked primed to take a step forward in their team’s evolution in 2024-25. They ended the Pierre-Luc Dubois experiment after year one, trading him to Washington for Darcy Kuemper. That decision somehow snowballed into a 105-point season, vaulting them into second place in the division ahead of the Edmonton Oilers.

In Games 1 and 2 against Edmonton, the Kings survived a pair of scares to win both games at home. And late in Game 3, LA was holding onto a 4-3 lead and looking poised to take a commanding 3-0 series lead.

Then the Oilers tied the game, and Jim Hiller made one of the worst coach’s challenge calls in league history.

After that, the Kings’ house of cards immediately crumbled. Ownership saw a fourth straight first round exit as reason enough to first GM Rob Blake and replace him with former Oilers manager Ken Holland. If you can’t beat them, join them right?

Maybe not, because Holland immediately spun around and gave some albatross contracts to Cody Ceci and Brian Dumoulin on defence, as well as offering 40-year-old Corey Perry $2 million to switch sides. Outside of giving former Canuck Andrei Kuzmenko a one-year deal to build off his late-season success with them, the Kings’ have taken two clear steps backwards this offseason.

No team in the Pacific is more likely to drop out of the playoff picture than the Kings. Last season’s run – especially their league-leading 31 wins at home – seemed to come out of nowhere and looked like a flash in the pan after the bottom fell out against the Oilers. If you’re the Canucks (or any Pacific rival on the bubble for that matter), you’re licking your chops at the chance to take the Kings’ place.

Jim Hiller’s system is built on a rigid defensive system, where they take the lead and completely lay off the attack once they’re in front. The 1-3-1 setup the team defaults to is an incredibly taxing style of play, especially when you’re facing a team as fast-paced as the Oilers. By the end of the series, the Kings looked to have no gas in the tank left.

The Canucks might not have the high-octane roster of an Edmonton, but at their best, they have the offensive firepower capable of shredding a defensive team like the Kings. Vancouver showed flashes of that ability when they took two of three games against the Kings (which accounted for 20% of opposing teams’ wins in LA), but we also saw what happens when they don’t have the juice on the scoresheet during the Kings’ 5-1 win in Vancouver.

If the Canucks are going to claw their way back into the playoffs, vaulting over the Kings is going to be their absolute best shot.