Kings Star Knows How to Improve This Year

After the best season of his young career, one of the Los Angeles Kings' stars discussed how he's been able to take such a huge step with the team.

Apr 15, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; LA Kings right wing Quinton Byfield (55) skates with the puck against the Minnesota Wild in the second period at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The Los Angeles Kings are confident entering the 2024-2025 season. Despite trading away Pierre-Luc Dubois, the team believes they have an even better top-six center waiting for the chance. That's why they signed young star Quinton Byfield to a five-year contract extension, keeping the 22-year-old forward around for the forseeable future.

Last year with the Kings was the first full season Byfield spent in the NHL, and he was beyond impressive. Over 80 games, he recorded 20 goals and 35 assists to finish with 55 points. Entering the 2024-2025 season, he's eager to build off a successful year and put up even more points. He spoke with Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas on a recent episode of the 32 Thoughts podcast and discussed what Byfield's break out season and what he's expecting next.

"I think just last year my main goal was obviously to go to the net," he said. "That's still really what I want to do...I felt at times I was deferring or pulling up a little bit when I was entering the zone instead of having the mindset of attacking the net,"

But Byfield also acknowledged that in order to score more, he has to become more dangerous from the perimeter. During his conversation with Friedman and Bukauskas, he discussed how he can do that in 2024-2025. A huge part of his plan is to drop the fear of making the perfect play and getting the pucks on net from a variety of angles and shooting depths.

"Make a little deception move, get a quick shot off," he said. "You're not going to score all of them, but the more that you do that, the more it's going to go in. The more you have to respect me shooting from farther and then the next play opens up too. Things like that."

Byfield and the Kings are hoping this mindset switch pays off for their promising center. The team is relying heavily on him to not only improve his own scoring output, but to eventually take the number one center job. He seems ready to push towards that goal this season, and the Kings are ready for him to take it.

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