Kings, Quinton Byfield agree to 5-year, $31.25M extension
After a slow start to his NHL career, the 21-year-old forward has grown into a prominent role with the team, recording a career-high 20 goals and 35 assists in 80 games last season.
The Kings and forward Quinton Byfield agreed to terms on a five-year contract extension worth $31.25 million, the club announced on Monday.
The 21-year-old notched a goal and an assist in Game 82 last season to cross two performance-bonus thresholds with his 20th goal and 55th point, both of which obliterated his previous career bests of five goals and 22 points. The 6-foot-5, 225-pound center was the heir apparent to team captain Anze Kopitar at one point and might now be so again. He spent time on the wing during each of the past two seasons, but a catastrophic experiment with since-traded center Pierre-Luc Dubois that ended after one season will move Byfield back to the middle next year.
Byfield was the second overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, but until this past season he appeared poised to sign what’s commonly referred to as a bridge deal, a term of one or two years to cover an interstitial period in a player’s development. His ascension to the top line late in the 2022-23 season and last season’s stretch that featured 40 points in 48 games, including a pair of goal-of-the-year candidates, elevated his profile. He had a career-best 14 points on the power play last season and scored four game-winning goals while finishing with a plus-19 rating.
Much like his friend and frequent linemate Adrian Kempe, Byfield had earned considerable distinction as a prospect but only had one substantively productive campaign behind him when it came time to negotiate his first hefty contract. Like another Kings lottery pick, Alex Turcotte, Byfield had also lost development time to injury, specifically a broken ankle and later a viral illness that caused him to lose around 25 pounds during 2022-23.
There was much speculation as to whether the Kings would still attempt to bridge Byfield, particularly with Kopitar being under contract for two more seasons after which he said he’s considering retirement, or lock him up to a maximum term of eight years.
Both Kings general manager Rob Blake and Byfield’s agent David Gagner were loath to reveal details during the negotiation process. There were, however, various signals pointing to a compromise between a minimal commitment and one that would have likely left the Kings with no salary cap flexibility after maxing out Byfield’s contract duration and re-signing another restricted free agent, defenseman Jordan Spence.
Initially, Blake had said that Byfield would be the team’s top priority, even ahead of its pending unrestricted free agents. Yet the Kings re-signed UFA goalie David Rittich and made several other moves leading up to and on the July 1 opening of free agency, when they let Matt Roy, Viktor Arvidsson and Blake Lizotte depart while leaving enough cap space to stave off all but the effectively cost-prohibitive potential offer sheets for Byfield.
Ultimately, they neither bridged Byfield nor locked him up, but instead found a sweet spot in terms of the $6.25 million AAV and five-year length. One of those campaigns would have been an unrestricted free-agent year, the final season of 2028-29, and three of the others would have been arbitration-eligible RFA years.
“We are extremely excited to reach an agreement that will allow Quinton to continue to grow with the Kings for the next five years,” Blake said. “Since selecting him in 2020, Quinton has demonstrated his commitment to getting better on and off the ice each day.”
The Kings reached the playoffs for the third consecutive year, but they were knocked out of the first round by Edmonton for the third straight season.
Byfield will be the fifth Kings forward and eighth player with an average annual salary above $5 million next season.