The Crease in Los Angeles Belongs to Forsberg Now

Eighty-four games. The puck dropped in September — only the second time in league history — and the sport didn't blink.

The new math, per the new CBA: four preseason games, then eighty-four that count. The longest regular season since 1993-94. Less rehearsal. More hockey.

Opening night gave us the banner and the reckoning in one building: Carolina raised it against Florida — the defending champions versus the team that won the two before them. Five o'clock Eastern, ESPN. The league doesn't do subtle.

But the story that matters is the crease in Los Angeles. Forsberg. Kuemper. Two names. One net.

Forsberg stole the job late last season. Started all four postseason games. The Kings set their opening roster this week and nothing changed — the job is his until somebody takes it back.

Around them, the names you know: Doughty, nineteenth season, 165 career goals — the most by a Kings defenseman ever. Kempe, who led the team with 73 points. Panarin, first full season in Los Angeles — 27 points in 26 games after the February trade. Clarke, the breakout: eight goals, forty points, all eighty-two games. Fiala opens on injured reserve.

Goalies are a separate species. A skater can hide a bad week behind his linemates. A goalie hides nothing — every mistake is a red light and twenty thousand witnesses. That's why an October crease battle matters more than any line combination.

The Kings open at Colorado, then host Florida on the sixth. Eighty-four games. The audition is the season.

One line from the rink-side report — the sentence that explains the whole season better than any score: Forsberg 'stole the starting job from Kuemper late last season and started all four postseason games,' and will likely keep it, with Kuemper's struggles carrying straight through the preseason. Stolen jobs don't get returned in October.

Start with the numbers, because the numbers are merciless. Darcy Kuemper finished third in the Vezina Trophy vote two seasons ago, then fell off a cliff: save percentage from .921 to .891, goals-against average from 2.02 to 2.78. Among fifty-nine NHL goalies who played twenty-five or more games last season, he ranked thirty-eighth in goals saved above expected per sixty minutes. The penalty kill — 74.6 percent, the franchise's worst since 1986-87 — collapsed with him in it, and Kuemper posted one of the league's worst shorthanded save percentages behind one of its easier workloads. A head injury and a pinched nerve stole games; the crease stole the rest. He ended the year benched for the playoff sweep, watching the Avalanche end the season. Meanwhile Anton Forsberg — signed in the summer of 2025 as what looked like a quality backup — ranked fourteenth in that same goals-saved metric, graded out far better on the kill, and didn't flinch in April. He earned the playoff job on merit and kept it. That's the entire case for the changing of the guard, in decimals.

The backdrop is a franchise in transition. Peter Laviolette is the new head coach, and his first season comes with the hardest job in Los Angeles sports-adjacent history: life after Anze Kopitar. The captain retired, and Quinton Byfield — twenty-four goals and forty-nine points, both career highs — steps in as the No. 1 center. Drew Doughty is playing the final year of the eight-year, $88 million contract he signed in 2018, the last remaining Cup holdover from 2012 and 2014, and he knows it: twenty-three points in seventy-two games last year and none in four playoff games is not the Doughty standard, even at thirty-six. The roster added grit around the edges — Corey Perry back at forty-one for the fourth line, Scott Laughton, Joel Armia — and the structure in front of the goalies is sound: Los Angeles ranked fourth in five-on-five expected goals against with the Mikey Anderson-Doughty pairing intact. The system is fine. The net was the question mark, and Forsberg is the answer until somebody out-plays him.

The opening act already told the story. Kuemper got the opening-night start in Colorado on Wednesday, and the Avalanche hung eight on the Kings in an 8-4 loss — not all of it on him, but not the kind of start that reopens a closed argument. Tonight the Kings visit the San Jose Sharks, and Forsberg was the first goalie off the morning skate, which means he's expected to make his season debut. Perry dresses for the first time this season, Erik Gustafsson makes his Los Angeles debut, and the Kings will run eleven forwards and seven defensemen at the Shark Tank. Then comes the home opener against the Florida Panthers on October 6 at Crypto.com Arena. Three games, three moods: the reckoning, the reset, the reunion. Follow the whole season on Previously's NHL hub and track the Kings' team page — and if you want skin in the crease battle, the odds board is already pricing every one of these eighty-four games.

And eighty-four is the whole point. This is the longest NHL regular season since 1993-94, the second September start in league history, and the preseason got cut to four games to make room. More hockey, less rehearsal, more of everything — including the wear that makes goaltending tandems matter. Expect a 1A/1B setup rather than a bellcow: Forsberg is two and a half years younger, but Kuemper's pedigree didn't vanish overnight, and Erik Portillo waits in the wings if either of them falters. Eighty-four games of auditions, one net, two men, and a new coach who has to pick right because his penalty kill can't save them. Stolen jobs don't get returned in October. They get defended, one start at a time.