Drew Doughty Named 15th Captain In Kings History

The Los Angeles Kings have named Drew Doughty the 15th captain in franchise history, the team announced. Adrian Kempe, Artemi Panarin and Mikey Anderson will serve as alternate captains for 2026-27. Doughty becomes the seventh defenseman in team history to wear the “C.”

“Drew Doughty has earned this,” Kings general manager and vice president Ken Holland said. “He’s a champion who’s won Stanley Cups and competed at the highest level of this game for a long time, and he’s shown he can lead this team by the way he competes every day. That’s the standard we want to set, and there’s no one better to set it than Drew.”

“Drew is a player I’ve admired from afar for a long time,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “Since getting to know him better as a person, it’s clear he’s the right choice to be captain of this team. He sets the tone with the way he competes, and that’s contagious.”

Doughty called the honor one he takes great pride in. “The Kings mean everything to me,” he said. “I’ve played my entire career here, and I want to lead this team by example, showing what it means to be a King and what it takes to win championships.”

The captaincy had been open since Anze Kopitar’s retirement at the end of the 2025-26 season, when his 20-year run as the franchise’s all-time games-played and assists leader came to a close. Doughty takes over having spent his entire career alongside Kopitar in Los Angeles, and the two were teammates on both of the franchise’s Stanley Cup runs.

Doughty, 36, is set to enter his 19th NHL season, all with Los Angeles, after the Kings took him second overall in the 2008 draft. He is the franchise’s all-time leader in goals by a defenseman with 165, and he leads Kings blueliners in nearly every major regular-season category: games played (1,279), assists (544), points (709), even-strength goals (82), even-strength points (394), power-play points (304), overtime goals (8), game-winning goals (34), shots (2,590), multi-point games (134), multi-assist games (83), hits (2,076), blocks (1,694) and takeaways (314).

He opens the season 17 games behind Dustin Brown’s franchise record of 1,296 games played, and 21 games from becoming the 22nd defenseman in NHL history to reach 1,300 career games. His 1,279 games are the 26th-most by a defenseman in NHL history, and the second-most among active blueliners behind Brent Burns (1,579). Doughty joins Nicklas Lidstrom, Ray Bourque, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, and Ken Daneyko as one of five defensemen to play as many games with a single franchise.

His postseason resume is just the cherry on top of the case for the captaincy. Doughty, in his two cup runs with the Kings, in 2012 and 2014, led all NHL defensemen in playoff scoring in both runs: 16 points in 2012, 18 in 2014. Across 105 career playoff games, he has 61 points (19 goals, 42 assists), ranking second among Kings postseason leaders in games played and fourth in assists, points, and power-play points.

Individually, Doughty won the Norris Trophy in 2016, becoming the second Kings defenseman to do so after Rob Blake, and he was a finalist for the award three other times (2010, 2015, 2018). He made five All-Star teams from 2015-19 and has collected a string of internal team honors, including the Bill Libby Memorial Award as team MVP, 13 Outstanding Defenseman awards and three Best Defensive Player awards.

Internationally, the London, Ontario, native has represented Canada at three Olympics, winning gold in 2010 and 2014 before a silver in 2026, along with a gold medal at the 2017 World Cup of Hockey.

With Kopitar gone and the alternate captain group skewing toward Kempe, Panarin, and Anderson, Doughty is now the clearest link to the Kings’ last championship era heading into a season in which the franchise is still chasing its first playoff series win since 2014.