- Quinton Byfield takes over as the Kings’ No. 1 center with Anze Kopitar retired
- NHL.com projects Artemi Panarin and Kevin Fiala on his wings
- Read below for what Byfield’s numbers say about the jump
Quinton Byfield is the Los Angeles Kings’ No. 1 center now.
Anze Kopitar retired after Colorado swept the Kings out of the first round, and the job lands on a forward who turns 24 on Aug. 19. NHL.com’s Tracey Myers laid out the depth chart in the league’s 32-in-32 preview, with Artemi Panarin and Kevin Fiala projected on Byfield’s wings.
Los Angeles has already set the goodbye. Kopitar’s No. 11 goes to the rafters on Feb. 24, with a bronze statue coming too.
Learning the position behind Kopitar took a few seasons. Byfield handled the heavy defensive matchups down the stretch last year while Kopitar kept the offensive-zone starts with Panarin and Fiala, per Myers. Those starts belong to Byfield now.
The 2020 second overall pick actually outscored Kopitar last season, 49 points in 79 games to 38 in 67.
That 49 was still a step back. Byfield put up 55 points in 2023-24 and 54 in 2024-25, and while his 24 goals were a career high, 25 assists was his thinnest full-season total in three years. Yahoo Sports noted that The Athletic slotted the Kings’ top-six center group into its seventh tier this summer, the group it labeled a major weakness.
Panarin gives him a genuine finisher to work with. The Kings pried him from the Rangers at the February deadline and signed him to a two-year extension at $11 million per season, and he closed the year with 84 points in 78 games between the two teams.
Peter Laviolette is the other reason Los Angeles thinks the goals are coming. The new coach explained the style he wants installed from the first day of camp:
“That attack mode for me is something I’ve believed in my whole life. I do think we have the personnel here to execute that style and that play.”
Laviolette coached Panarin with the Rangers from 2023 to 2025, and Tony Granato told the Kings Insider Show in July that the reunion is why he expects a different season out of the group. Take a look:
Scoring has been the whole problem. Los Angeles scored 220 goals last season, 29th in the NHL, while allowing 238, tied for seventh. Five straight first-round exits have come with that same split.
Byfield already outscored Kopitar. Doing the rest of what Kopitar did is the part nobody in Los Angeles has replaced.
