History could repeat itself next summer with the Los Angeles Kings organization. The team saw defenseman Matt Roy head for greener pastures in the form of a six-year, $34.5MM deal with the Washington Capitals and that’s not a scenario they’ll want to see play out again with another shutdown defenseman of theirs.
If Vladislav Gavrikov has his way, he’ll be with the Kings organization for the foreseeable future. In a recent interview with Daria Tuboltseva of RG.org, Gavrikov said, “We shared our position, but it’s too early to discuss a new contract. I have a full no-trade clause, so the trade deadline isn’t an issue for me – we have plenty of time. I haven’t decided on the term yet, but my priority is a long-term contract. As for the financial side, we haven’t gotten to that yet.”
This summer will be Gavrikov’s second opportunity to sign a new long-term contract in Los Angeles. He originally signed a two-year, $11.75MM extension with the Kings in 2023, a few months after the team acquired him in a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets. As much as Gavrikov would have liked to sign a long-term deal in Columbus then, he chose a shorter-term deal with the Kings for a few reasons.
At the time, Gavrikov’s idea of a shorter-term deal with Los Angeles was largely a gamble on himself. The salary cap’s upper limit was mostly stagnant from 2019 to 2024, and Gavrikov wanted to set himself up for a larger payday once it started to rise again. Given that the upper limit will be nearly $10MM more in the 2025-26 campaign than when he signed his current contract, it appears Gavrikov’s gamble has paid off.
Another reason Gavrikov chose a shorter-term deal is that he hadn’t quite familiarized himself with the city of Los Angeles. Further along in the interview with Tuboltseva, Gavrikov was quoted saying, “When I got to L.A., I needed time to decide if my family and I wanted to stay. That’s why we agreed on a short-term contract with the Kings. Now we know what we want, and we can sign a long-term deal here.”
His defensive attributes alone have made him a valuable blue-liner for the Kings. Gavrikov has had to take on a larger role this year in Los Angeles due to the untimely injury of Drew Doughty at the beginning of the season. The native of Yaroslavl, Russia leads all Kings’ defensemen in average time on ice of 23:52, 81 blocked shots, and a +16 rating.
There aren’t a ton of recent comparables to Gavrikov’s situation but the defenseman who immediately comes to mind as playing a similar style and signing a long-term deal is Chris Tanev of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Toronto signed Tanev to a six-year, $27MM contract this past summer, but being that Gavrikov is six years younger than Tanev, it’s more than likely his AAV will land closer to $6MM-$6.75MM instead of Tanev’s $4.5MM.