The Los Angeles Kings Open a New Season With a Different Kind of Pressure

LOS ANGELES — The Kings open the 2026-27 NHL season Wednesday night in Colorado carrying a familiar ambition and a very different set of questions. Los Angeles has been a regular playoff team, but another first-round exit last spring made continuity feel less comforting than it once did. The opener against the Avalanche is therefore more than a ceremonial reset. It is the first public test of how the organization plans to move forward after an important change in leadership and personnel.

Peter Laviolette begins his first season behind the Kings bench after a summer in which the club confronted the limits of its recent formula. His immediate task is not to erase the defensive habits that kept Los Angeles competitive. It is to build more offense and flexibility around them. A team can be structurally sound and still become predictable in a seven-game series, especially when its power play stalls or opponents control the middle of the ice.

The Los Angeles Kings begin their 2026-27 season on the road before returning home in October. Image: mark6mauno / CC BY 2.0

The most visible roster question follows Anze Kopitar’s retirement. Kopitar was not merely a productive center; he was the reference point for matchups, special teams and late-game decisions for almost two decades. Quinton Byfield now has a larger opportunity, while veterans such as Erik Haula and Scott Laughton give the staff options. No single player is expected to reproduce Kopitar’s entire role, which makes the distribution of responsibility one of the season’s central stories.

That change places additional weight on the Kings’ established scorers. Adrian Kempe remains the clearest game-breaking threat, and Kevin Fiala can tilt a night with his skating and skill. The challenge is turning individual danger into sustained pressure across multiple lines. Los Angeles needs goals that do not depend on one perfect rush or one top unit. More traffic, quicker puck movement and better second opportunities would make the attack harder to solve.

Special teams will offer an early measure of Laviolette’s influence. The Kings’ penalty kill has often reflected their discipline and structure, but the power play has not always converted possession into enough decisive chances. Early-season percentages can swing wildly, so one week will not provide a verdict. The more useful signs will be entry success, recovery after missed shots and whether the unit forces goalies to move before the puck reaches the net.

The schedule gives Los Angeles little room for a slow emotional start. After opening at Colorado on September 30, the Kings travel to San Jose on October 3 and then host Florida at Crypto.com Arena on October 6. Colorado’s pace will test communication immediately. San Jose brings the pressure of a divisional game, while the home opener will carry the energy and scrutiny that arrive whenever a new chapter is introduced to the crowd.

Goaltending and team defense should remain sources of stability, but the Kings cannot ask those areas to cover every offensive drought. The best version of this roster protects the slot without retreating into passivity, exits cleanly and attacks before an opponent can organize. That balance matters because the Western Conference punishes hesitation. A careful team still has to create uncomfortable moments at the other end.

For local fans, this is also a season about identity. Los Angeles sports fans know that a new season can reset a city’s mood, yet patience is not unlimited when a veteran core has already shown it can reach the postseason. The question is no longer whether the Kings are respectable. It is whether they can become less comfortable to play against in April than they have been in recent years.

The organization will not answer that in Colorado alone. New systems need repetition, lines change and every contender survives stretches that look less convincing than the plan on paper. Still, openers can reveal priorities. Watch where Byfield is deployed, how aggressively the defense joins the rush, which players receive the first power-play minutes and whether the forecheck creates chances rather than simply territory.

The Kings enter the year with enough experience to avoid treating change as panic and enough urgency to know that another similar ending would be difficult to explain. Wednesday begins a long schedule, not a referendum. But it also begins the clearest attempt in years to alter the path before the destination repeats itself.