Los Angeles Kings Draft Board

Goalie is weak in this draft, the Kings could use a left-shot defenseman or a power winger.

My guess is the Kings will either go Russian or trade for Chychrun or Debrincat at the draft.

In fact they are thin on LHD on any level (NHL, AHL, juniors). Nousiainen is fresh blood to AHL, but he is not expected to become superstar. Kirsanov might be decent piece someday, but he will turn 20 in September and is under contract for another year. Meehan is 21 and nothing very special in NCAA. Doyle is one of LAK's rare draft misses, despite being 6th round selection.

LAK has been trying to trade their 1st round pick as part of a trade for roster player for several months. If they are not able to make a trade, Mintyukov should be their 1st target and they might be willing to trade up a couple of spots for him (both NSH and DAL could be targeting D-men). He is on the older side and more mature than majority of his peers. LAK are trying to end their retool and make a playoff run until Kopitar and Quick are still active. Mintyukov helps with that timing component, because he should be 1st NHL-ready LHD of the class.
Second target for 1st round pick could be Bichsel. He is under contract for another year in SHL, but has experience against men and will continue with hard battles in Sweden. Mateychuk and Korchinski are young and are expected to play at least another season in WHL, so they shouldn't be as high on LAK list.
Other possibilities for 1st round pick should be players with the highest pure offensive upside. That includes Lambert and Russians.

I expect LAK to select (or trade for) more than 1 LHD. Mateychuk, Korchinski, Mintyukov, Pickering and Bichsel shouldn't be available anymore late in 2nd round, so next target should be Duda, who was excellent in MHL playoffs. At the moment he is not signed in Russia and in theory can be available anytime. On the other hand are Forsmark and Odelius under contract for 2 more seasons and therefore less suitable. Other LHD would be a reach at this spot. If Duda is not available, winger makes sense. It can be either winger with high offensive upside or power-forward. Nyman or Schaefer could be available. Lorenz is less suitable, he is going to college. His father went there for full 4 years, which gives me second thoughts. LAK could very well go for Dolzhenkov in 2nd round as they did in 2021 with Helenius.

3rd round selection can be the one they would select a goalie. Other candidates could be CHL LHDs (if they don't have 2 already). If they have 2 LHDs already and are not satisfied with goalies available, Kaplan would make some sense. There are several bigger forwards in the draft, but not many RWs of that kind. Kaplan will go relatively early.

4th round can be CHL forward. Lots of their current and former players are linked to Owen Sound (Simmonds, Dudas, Lewis, Richardson, Sekera, MacDermid, Middleton, Durzi, Phillips). I don't expect Petrovsky to be available there, but Guindon could be (as Bryant should be at their last selection). Otherwise, address your G/LHD needs.

5th and 6th round... they should add one heavier or strictly power-forward in the draft. If they are without one until now, Parker Bell, Patrik Juhola, Mikko Matikka and Santeri Sulku could be still available. Possibilities are also Yakupov, Hauser and Kopecky. Interesting pick would be Frederic Brunet, who is D/F (from the same franchise than Samuel Morin, now retired PHI's D/F). One of the picks could be used for another goalies. Silverstein could be candidate, he is native to LA-suburb; local players are usually helpful to connect with fans.

I expect LAK to draft (or draft + trade pick for) 2F, 3D, 1G or 2F, 2D, 2G combination. They really need just final pieces, especially they are almost set up front. Their forward pool is numerous and talented, but not very diverse. So I do expect another power-forward. If they would select 2 goalies, one could/should be overager.