Kings, Kempe in no rush to get extension done

The Los Angeles Kings have been busy in the NHL season’s early days, as they are the only team in the league to play two games after a loss to the Colorado Avalanche one night before a dramatic victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.

On a team with plenty of talent up front, veteran winger Adrian Kempe is in a contract year, and he’s coming off of consecutive seasons in which he’s put up at least 73 points. As stars like Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Kirill Kaprizov and Kyle Connor have agreed considerable contract extensions within the past week, Kempe has quickly ascended to being one of the top players possibly available in free agency on July 1.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by insider David Pagnotta to discuss where things stand between the Los Angeles front office and their star winger as he plays out the final year of a four-year contract with an average annual value of $5.5 million.

Carter Hutton: Adrian Kempe, another warm weather guy. Is he a guy that we see the next guy to drop here as contracts start to fall off the board here?

David Pagnotta: I thought so up until a couple days ago and up until this morning. They’re taking a pause in negotiations right now. Talking to a couple of people on both ends of the spectrum, it looks like the Kings and Kempe’s camp are just going to say, “Hey let’s take a little timeout. We’ve been going back and forth for a little while. Let’s just take a breather,” and reconvene I believe later this month. It’s still early; the season just started.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…