For the third consecutive year, the Kings traded down in the first round of the NHL draft, delivering the 17th pick to the Utah Mammoth in exchange for Nos. 19 and 83 overall.
While the 83rd selection will have to wait for Saturday’s third round, the Kings used the 19th slot to bring Swedish winger Elton Hermansson into the fold.
Hermansson had a strong finish to his campaign in Sweden, playing primarily in the Allsvenskan relegation league, and put up the fourth-best point total for an Under-18 player in league history. He had prominent showings against his peers at a pair of international tournaments, accumulating 33 points in 18 appearances for the U18 Swedish national team.
“I had a great (U18 World Juniors and Gretzky-Hlinka Cup), played great. I had a decent first half of the season, but the second half was much better. I grew into the senior level a bit more and played better hockey,” Hermansson said. “There’s still a long way to go, but, yeah, it went pretty well.”
Hermansson can explode across the neutral zone or weave his way through it, capable of making plays at high speeds. Creating offense and driving play are his biggest appealing factors, while his “B” game will likely get a thorough overhaul in the Kings’ system.
He hails from the hockey hotbed Örnsköldsvik, a city of around 35,000 inhabitants that has produced legends like Peter Forsberg, Markus Näslund and the Sedin twins. Kings forward Adrian Kempe played in the city with MoDo, where he was coached early in his career by Hermansson’s father, Lennart, a 15-year pro in Sweden and Norway.
In another Kings connection, Hermansson said he liked to pattern his game somewhat after Artemi Panarin, whom the Kings acquired via trade in February from the New York Rangers.
Holland was asked about negotiations with unrestricted free agents Scott Laughton and Andrei Kuzmenko, and his response seemed hopeful at best.
“I’m not sure if they’ll be back or not, that’ll be determined here in the next few days,” said Holland, later adding that he did not anticipate defenseman Jacob Moverare to return.
He also updated the status of alternate captain Drew Doughty, who will be eligible for a contract extension on July 1. He said he would not trade Doughty, going so far as to decline the submission of his no-trade list, but that he wouldn’t be putting pen to paper just yet either.
“We’ve agreed that we’re not going to sign him to an extension,” Holland said. “He loves it here, he wants to be here. We both agreed, ‘let’s see where he’s at, let’s see where the team’s at a year from now.’”