The Kings and their top minor-league affiliate, the Ontario Reign, continued their busy summer by adding goalie and Hermosa Beach native Mattias Sholl on a one-year American Hockey League contract.
Sholl, 24, is fresh off four years at Bemidji State University in Minnesota, and before that he came through the Junior Kings program. His father, Brad, was the manager of the Kings’ practice facility in El Segundo during the glory years of the early and mid-2010s that saw the Kings win the franchise’s only two Stanley Cups.
“It’s special,” Sholl told Kings Insider Zach Dooley. “The dream for me as a kid was always to play in the NHL, and play for the L.A. Kings. There are quite a few steps left for, hopefully, that to happen, but growing up watching Kings practices and just going to Kings games all the time, and to be in the situation I am now, just being close to it, it’s an incredible feeling, a full-circle moment in a way.”
At 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, Sholl joins 2025 NCAA national champion Hampton Slukynsky among the undersized netminders in the Kings’ system. He got his feet wet after the collegiate campaign concluded with the Kings’ ECHL affiliate last season, the Swamp Rabbits of Greenville, S.C.
The Reign kick off 2025-26 on Oct. 10 following a summer that saw the Kings add five players in NHL free agency, headlined by longtime thorn in their side Corey Perry, as well as make four AHL signings soon after before tidying up some other business at the lower rungs of the organization.
They re-signed tough guy John Parker-Jones, who played one game with the Reign and 50 more with Greenville last season. Standing 6-foot-7 and tipping the scales around 230 pounds, Parker-Jones has made his mark with his physical play and fighting, picking up at least half-dozen fighting majors last year per Hockey Fights.
Prior to that, they drew nearer to cornering the Alaskan goalie market. Having already re-signed Pheonix Copley, they added Isaiah Saville to a minor-league deal. Copley, one of two Alaskan goalies to have played in the NHL along with the Boston Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman, hails from North Pole, Alaska, and Saville is from Anchorage. The 24-year-old, who plays an athletic style at 6’1” and just under 200 pounds, was a fifth-round selection of the Vegas Golden Knights in 2019.
The Kings also doled out an AHL deal to former second-rounder Jack Hughes, not to be confused with the New Jersey Devils’ No. 1 overall pick of the same name. Hughes, whose father is Montreal Canadiens GM Kent Hughes, went 51st overall to the Kings in 2022, standing under six foot at just 170 pounds.
Despite Hughes being a fairly high pick, his standing with the organization appeared highly uncertain due to stagnant production across four years at Northeastern University. He scored the same seven goals as a junior and senior as he did as a freshman. Though he’s known more for his playmaking, a modest 18 assists as a senior headlined his production across four years for the Huskies.