Alright everyone happy Capped Wednesday and welcome back into the World's #1 most trusted salary cap information superhighway. I don't know…maybe I'm #2 behind the comment section on PuckPedia, but still top five. This week we had a signing that was surprising in some respects, but in retrospect made perfect sense.


Adrian Kempe signs an eight-year, $85.00M ($10.6M AAV) extension with the Los Angeles Kings

Ah yes, another classic eight-year deal. Get 'em while ya can! Next season the max goes down to seven. This week, Adrian Kempe signed an extension with the Los Angeles Kings, yet another domino falls in the 2026 UFA class. I joked once that I'll be here in July breaking down the Nick Schmaltz extension as he'll be the last skater standing and hey, maybe that'll be the case!

I love this deal for Los Angeles and am happy that the Kings are off to the start that they are in order to have a deal in place for Kempe make sense…look, I wrote the Kings offseason review here and like most, torched their offseason acquisitions. I even went as far to say that this was a sneaky tank team, and I think that was well-founded, as their blue line didn't look impressive on paper, we probably wouldn't see the season Darcy Kuemper had last season this year, and as far as contracts that could be moved, Kempe's was front and center. He carries a decent AAV and does not have a no-trade if the Kings decided to look towards the future. This is not the case, as the Kings are right near the top in the Pacific Division, and they have plenty of future spend to allow them to sign Kempe to an extension. It was clear in reading into this that both sides wanted to see this happen, and when that occurs, you must applaud all parties.

As far as the term and AAV, this deal might look a little sour towards the end, but the AAV is very reasonable for a player that is such an integral part of what the Kings do. Even with the $5M jump in salary, the Kings will drop the $7M from Anze Kopitar's expiring contract, and let's not forget the magic words of this offseason – the salary cap is going up.

Let's talk fantasy now, and I take no joy in doing so…because I wish I rostered Kempe in my league. Allow me to explain, every season I have him in my queue, and every season he is taken from me…by the same person in our league who just so happens to be an L.A. Kings fan. The last time I rostered Kempe was during the COVID shortened season where I won our league, so maybe it's still a matter of chasing that player, but I really do love his game. While he's been kept out of the goal column since November 4^th, since that time (six games), he has had four shots on goal in all but one of those contests. This along with the 41 hits and 11 blocked shots provides peripheral stats that I look for on my fantasy team.

For those out there grinding in a salary league like me, I don't think this price hike is going to be too detrimental to your salary cap. Odds are you have salary coming off the books to be able to support this price hike, this isn't a player that is on an ELC that is about to jump, or a sign-and-trade, this is much more manageable. Kempe this season is currently on a pace to where we could see him land somewhere in the upper 70's as far as points, while currently carrying the highest shots on goal per game in his career currently.

*Salary Cap data from PuckPedia.com  

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