gold star for USAHOF

Top 50 Los Angeles Kings

The Los Angeles Kings were part of the first wave of NHL expansion in 1967, but despite being in the second-largest market in the United States, Hockey took decades to gain traction in the area.

The Kings did have stars, such as Marcel Dionne, but the trade for Wayne Gretzky made the Kings the must-watch team of the late 80s and early 90s.  The Kings made the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals, losing to Montreal, but the sport was cemented in Southern California.

In the early 2010s, the Kings were a far more complete team, winning it all in 2012 and 2014 with squads full of future Hall of Famers and role players.

This list is up to the end of the 2024/25 season.

Note: Hockey lists are based on an amalgamation of tenure, traditional statistics, advanced statistics, playoff statistics, and postseason accolades.

Born in Finland and raised in Sweden, Juha Widing moved to Canada as a teenager.  He played in the WHL and was working his way to the NHL, making the New York Rangers in 1970. Late in the year, he was traded to Los Angeles.  It was with the Kings that…
Jimmy Carson was the Second Overall Pick in the 1986 Draft, and he would be an All-Rookie, scoring 79 Points and finishing third in Calder voting, an impressive output for an 18-year-old. Carson was even better at 19, finishing third in Goals with 55 and scoring 107 overall.  This was one…
Garry Galley had two stints with the Los Angeles Kings, the first coming after he was the 100th Overall Pick in the 1983 Draft, while he was playing collegiately at Bowling Green.  Galley turned pro the following year and made the Kings roster immediately, logging significant ice time on the Kings' second…
Sean O’Donnell was traded to the Los Angeles Kings before he made it to the NHL with the team that drafted him, the Buffalo Sabers.  It was with the Kings that he first proved his merits. O'Donnell played his first five NHL seasons with the Kings, using his grit and…
Kevin Fiala had a breakout year in 2021-22 as a member of the Minnesota Wild when he scored 85 Points.  Seeking a playmaking forward, the Kings traded Brock Faber and a First Round Pick for Fiala, and in the three seasons he has been with the Kings, he scored at…
Tom Williams played 25 Games with the New York Rangers before being traded to Los Angeles, where he had his greatest success in Hockey. The Left Wing played with the Kings until 1979, excelling on tertiary lines, but had one standout year in 1976/77 when he scored 35 goals and…
A solid player at Michigan Tech, Matt Roy was drafted by the Los Angeles Kings in the Seventh Round in 2015 and joined the organization two years later.  After another two years, Roy was called up to the parent club and has provided solid defense ever since. Roy is a…
Showing off solid offensive versatility in his career, Mike Cammalleri’s long career began in Los Angeles, debuting in 2002, but cementing himself as a starting NHL forward in 2005, where he had 55 Points in his first full season in hockey’s premier league. Cammalleri followed this with one of his…
Matt Greene was a member of the Edmonton Oilers before being traded to the Los Angeles Kings in the 2008 off-season.  In L.A., he finished his career, but it wasn't brief, as he played there for nine seasons. Greene was a traditional stay-at-home Defenseman who didn't score much, but didn't have…
A Los Angeles King for the first five-and-a-half years of his NHL career, Neil Komadoski was a defensive stalwart for the team throughout the 1970s. Komadoski was not an offensive star, only scoring 67 Points with Los Angeles, but he had a Plus/Minus of +18, a good number considering where…