The Kings will be without their best player for the foreseeable future and could lose another key cog entirely, as Tuesday’s developments were unkind to the black and silver.
Goalie Darcy Kuemper, who was voted the team MVP last season and was on track to repeat the feat this year, was placed on injured reserve Tuesday.
The 2025 Vezina Trophy finalist absorbed a blow to the head from Dallas Stars winger Mikko Rantanen on Monday that was deemed interference, nullifying a Wyatt Johnston goal, but, controversially, not a penalty. In Kuemper’s stead, the Kings recalled veteran netminder Pheonix Copley.
Additionally Tuesday, Montreal-based reporter Marco D’Amico shared that center Phillip Danault had asked for a trade. Danault has struggled to score, going 38 consecutive games without a goal and mustering just five assists in 30 appearances during 2025-26. He’s been out with an illness for the Kings’ last two games and did not travel with the team for its current road trip.
D’Amico reported that not only did Danault ask for a trade, but the Quebecois pivot’s preference was to have the deal done ahead of the holiday trade freeze, which begins Saturday.
SCNG reached out to Danault’s representative, Octagon’s Allan Walsh, for comment.
“Zero truth. Pure fantasy,” Walsh replied. “Who wants a trade before Christmas?”
Both Danault, 32, and Kuemper, 35, are in the penultimate year of their respective contracts, which each carry a salary cap hit in excess of $5 million.
Danault, a superb defensive center, has seen his offensive game crater over time. It flourished after he signed as a free agent in 2021 following a stunning run to the Stanley Cup Final with Montreal.
Kuemper had muscled his way into the conversation to represent and possibly even start for Canada at February’s Olympic Games in Milan. Among goalies with at least 10 starts, he ranks seventh league-wide in both save percentage and goals-against average, all behind the NHL’s third-least productive offense. In Dallas, the Kings scored one goal, a five-on-three tally that was the fortuitous result of a puck-handling error by Stars goalie Casey DeSmith.
The severity and precise nature of Kuemper’s injury were not revealed by the Kings on Tuesday. They had a day off in advance of a back-to-back set in the Sunshine State against the defending champion Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
KINGS AT PANTHERS
When: Wednesday, 4 p.m. PT
Where: Amerant Bank Arena, Sunrise, Fla.
TV/Radio: FDSN West