Darcy Kuemper wants to keep his place with the Los Angeles Kings, but this time he has to earn it.
That’s the shift facing the veteran goalie as he heads into a new season alongside Anton Forsberg. A year ago, Kuemper arrived at camp as the clear No. 1 after a Vezina Trophy-nominated 2024-25 season.
The Kings were expecting the same steady presence in net. Instead, an injury in December changed everything, and Forsberg eventually seized the starting role.
According to Kings insider Zach Dooley, Kuemper wants to stay in Los Angeles and believes he can win the job back. That makes training camp one of the most interesting parts of the Kings’ season.
The first two months of 2025-26 looked like more of the same from Kuemper. Then the injury hit, and his game fell off hard after he returned.
From that point on, he went 9-8-9 with a .868 save percentage, a 3.30 goals-against average and minus-15.87 goals saved above average. Those numbers landed among the worst in the NHL over that stretch.
Los Angeles kept giving him chances to straighten things out, but Forsberg kept forcing the issue.
Forsberg came to the Kings last offseason to give them a dependable veteran option behind Kuemper. Instead, he turned in what was probably the best season of his NHL career. In 36 appearances, he posted a 2.54 goals-against average, a .910 save percentage and 16 wins.
His importance grew as Kuemper struggled, and by the end of the regular season, Forsberg had taken over the crease. He then started all four games in Los Angeles’ first-round playoff series against Colorado and was arguably the Kings’ best performer.
The Kings were swept, but two of the games were one-goal losses, including a 2-1 overtime defeat in Game 2. Without Forsberg, those games probably wouldn’t have been close.
Now the Kings are heading into 2026-27 with a genuine battle on their hands.
Kuemper still has the resume. The Kings know what he looked like in 2024-25, when he finished with a .921 save percentage and a 2.02 goals-against average and emerged as one of the league’s better goalies. But they also have fresh evidence of what happened after the injury.
This isn’t about whether Kuemper belongs in the NHL or whether he can still start. He’s already answered those questions. The challenge now is simpler and tougher: become the goalie Los Angeles can count on every night again.
There’s also a bigger layer to this. Kuemper and Forsberg are both in the final year of their contracts, which gives the Kings a full season to sort out what comes next.
If Kuemper gets back to his 2024-25 form, he could make a case to stay beyond this year. If Forsberg keeps building on last season, he may look like the better long-term choice.
And if they split the job, the decision only gets messier.
For Kuemper, though, the immediate task is straightforward.
Get healthy. Find his game. Win the crease.
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Adrian Kempe Enters A Bigger Kings Role With Even Higher Stakes
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Now he does so under a new eight-year contract extension, with the expectation that his role will only grow from here. The next step is as much about responsibility as production, with Kempe carrying bigger stakes for a team that will lean on him even more as it tries to keep its offense moving in the right direction. [Read more 🡒]