TOP 10 QUESTIONS: 2025-26 ONTARIO REIGN
A few years ago I started listing the Top 10 Questions for the Kings seasons, off-seasons, training camps etc.
It was a convenient way to make sure you covered everything that was important enough that it needed to be covered and wrapped it up in a convenient format.
Now that the Reign have announced their Season Opening rosters, it’s time to migrate that format onto the AHL and give you the
TOP 10 QUESTIONS FACING THE ONTARIO REIGN FOR THE 2025-26 AHL SEASON!!!
10 – HOW WILL KIRIL KIRSANOV ADAPT TO THE NORTH AMERICAN GAME?
Kirsanov was drafted 84th overall in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft along with Brandt Clarke, Samuel Helenius and Francesco Pinelli.
After drafting the Russian defenseman, Director of Amateur Scouting for the LA Kings said of him
Kirsanov has been playing in the KHL and signed an NHL Entry Level Contract in July of 2025. We’ve been hearing about this guy for years and now we get to see him.
His contract does include the option to return to the KHL but “It’s just a fallback, in case something doesn’t work out on either side.”
Source: RG.org
It remains to be seen how new Reign coach Andrew Lord will use the russian defenseman but given his size, skill set and reputation it would be surprising if he didn’t see much ice time.
9 – WHICH (IF ANY) KINGS PROSPECTS WILL PLAY FOR THE REIGN AFTER THEIR SEASONS ARE DONE?
The LA Kings prospect pool grew substantially this summer when they drafted nine players at the 2025 NHL Entry Draft. The team now has more than a dozen prospects spending the 2025-26 season in the NCAA, CHL and Europe.
Carter George, Liam Greentree and Jared Woolley all have Entry Level Contracts and all have impressed tremendously after being drafted by the Kings in the 2024 Entry Draft. All three play in the OHL and it remains to be seen if their seasons will even wrap up in time to play any games for Ontario.
Last season the Woolley and the London Knights won the Memorial Cup and didn’t end their season until June.
8 – WHO WILL PLAY IN NET?
Pheonix Copley was claimed off waivers wire by the Tampa Bay Lightning on October 2nd.
If this was the OLD Royal Half I’d have a photoshop here of Pheonix Copley in a dramatic pose on the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief movie poster making a cheap joke about how the Lightning are thieves.
Wait a second… It’s 2025 I can just ask AI to do it FOR me!
So now that the Kings have no Pheonix Copley it looks like it’s Erik Portillo’s net with Isaiah Saville backing him up. Will the Kings acquire an additional goaltender to be the “third” goalie for the Kings in case of an injury to Kuemper or Forsberg? If so will that goalie fight for time in net with Portillo?
Portillo is 25 years old and has another year left on his contract. Carter George, Hampton Slukynsky and Peterri Rimpinen are all in the system, younger than Portillo and will be competing for ice time soon. If Portillo wants to stake a claim to a spot in LA his time is running out and fending off a veteran teammate in Ontario will only make his job harder.
7 – WHO’S THE FIRST FORWARD TO BE CALLED UP TO THE KINGS?
Not only did the Kings draft nine prospects at the draft, they also signed a number of free agents to Standard Player Contracts (SPCs) and signed Kings prospect Jack Hughes to an AHL contract. The added depth in LA and Ontario means that as of today, the Reign have 8 defensemen and 16 forwards and that doesn’t include Angus Booth (injured). Assuming no other injuries to the Kings by the time Corey Perry returns you could see another player returned to the Reign in November.
Akil Thomas, Andre Lee, Taylor Ward, Cole Guttman, Glen Gawdin and Logan Brown have all played in the NHL before. Jeff Malott was a four time 20 goal scorer in the AHL with only one game of NHL experience before adopting his current role of 4th liner and face puncher with the LA Kings. It’s a tonal shift from how I was first introduced to him.
If and when Corey Perry returns to the Kings it’s possible that Malott or Helenius will be returned to the Reign and it’s equally possible that whichever player is assigned to Ontario could be the first recalled if the opportunity presented itself.
6 – WHO WILL LEAD THE TEAM IN SCORING?
Glen Gawdin seems like the obvious answer since he’s the returning player with the highest point total from the 2024-25 season. The team will have a fascinating blend of young veterans and young prospects on the roster this season and the “Top 6” could change on a game by game basis.
Players like Logan Brown, Cole Guttman or Akil Thomas could come through with an incredible statistical season.
5 – WHO WILL BE THE ALTERNATE CAPTAINS?
I’m assuming Joe Hicketts is returning as Captain of the Ontario Reign.
Charles Hudon and Jeff Malott were the alternates for much of the 2024-25 season but Hudon is playing in Sweden and Malott is playing in the NHL.
Who will wear the “A”s for the Reign this season? There’s a ton of veteran options and some younger faces as well. It’s not the most important story of the season but I think it’s interesting.
4 – HOW WILL KOEHN ZEIMMER PERFORM??
There are a ton of young Kings forward prospects that could be in the lineup this season. Jared Wright, Kenny Connors and Kaleb Lawrence all have specific skill sets that make them interesting players to watch but the Kings prospect i’m most curious about is Koehn Ziemmer. At 20 years old he’s the youngest of the AHL forwards with an NHL ELC. His offensive potential is a large part of my curiosity (he scored 41 goals in 2022-23) but it’s the description of him from the Elite Prospects 2023 NHL Draft Guide that has Kings fans focusing on his play.
Sign me up for “an IV drip of (often unpenalized) violence”… plus his first name just sounds like success.
3 – HOW WILL JACK HUGHES PERFORM?
THIS is the biggest story of the season to me.
Jack Hughes was drafted 51st overall in the second round of the 2022 NHL Entry Draft after one season at Northeastern University. He spent the 2022-23 season at Northeastern before transferring to Boston University.
I tried to find a breakdown of how many players picked in the 1st or 2nd round of the NHL Entry Draft wind up signing an Entry Level Contract (ELC) but I couldn’t find anything reliable. I’ll just look back at the Kings recent 1st and 2nd round draft picks.
Excluding the 2025 draft, the Kings have signed all but one of their 1st and 2nd round draft pick to an ELC going back well over a decade. Jack Hughes did not sign an ELC. Jack Hughes signed an AHL contract with the Ontario Reign on July 3rd, 2025.
That and the fact that if you say his name fast enough it sounds like a French phrase with a long complex history makes him unique.
Jack Hughes could have taken the lack of an ELC offer poorly and left the market. He’s the son of Montreal Canadiens GM Kent Hughes. I don’t know if he could parlay that relationship into an opportunity with a different franchise (his father notoriously opted NOT to draft him in 2022 in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety) but given how the rest of the hockey world works it seems unlikely to me that he couldn’t have found a softer landing than the Ontario Reign.
Jack Hughes could have chosen a different path but he didn’t. He signed an AHL contract with the affiliate of the team that opted not to give him an ELC and will set himself to the goal of working his way back onto an NHL trajectory. I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head of players who have succeeded in a similar attempt but I’m not familiar enough with the rest of the leagues prospects or their challenges.
I just think what Hughes has committed to is incredibly impressive. I don’t know that I would have had the fortitude or the confidence. I admire him for his decision and I am rooting for him in a way that I rarely root for prospects to succeed.
2 – HOW WILL THE KINGS SEASON IMPACT THE REIGN SEASON?
The life of an AHL franchise is beset by the unforeseen needs of it’s NHL affiliate. The Kings will have injuries and departures of players, coaches and other personnel and part of the Reign’s purpose is to provide replacements when the Kings need them. That’s just the nature of the relationship.
So how will those unknown potholes and pitfalls interrupt the Reign’s season? As of today the only thing we know is that at some point Corey Perry and Kyle Burroughs will return to the active roster of the LA Kings. The Kings have the room for one of those players but not both. Once both players are healthy, the Kings will need to send at least one player to the AHL to make room for them and that player will likely be inserted directly into the Reign active roster changing the dynamic in Ontario.
There’s a quote from the movie “Contact” that I’m particularly fond of and it applies to why an NHL club has an AHL affiliate…
The things we can’t think of today are likely how the Kings season will impact the Reign.
1 – WILL ANDREW LORD LEAD THE REIGN TO THE PLAYOFFS IN HIS FIRST SEASON AS REIGN COACH?
Andrew Lord was named as head coach of the Ontario Reign on July 11th. He replaces Marco Sturm who was hired as Head Coach of the Boston Bruins over the summer. Sturm coached the Reign to a 119-80-17 record with three postseason appearances in his three years behind the Ontario bench.
Lord was the 2024 ECHL Heac Coach of the year and spent 4 years as Head Coach of the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, the LA Kings ECHL affiliate.
The Pacific Division of the AHL has 10 teams in it. As a result, the AHL playoffs have five rounds and 23 teams make the playoffs. The Pacific Division sends seven teams to the playoffs with the Division winner earning a bye into the second round.
Here’s an easy to read and not at all confusing explanation of the whole thing.
Got it? Great.
