The Los Angeles Kings have inked Andrei Kuzmenko to a one-year contract extension worth $4.3 million total.
The 29-year-old forward split the 2024-25 season between the Calgary Flames, Philadelphia Flyers and Los Angeles Kings.
After exploding onto the scene in the 2022-23 season, posting 74 points (39G, 35A) in 81 games, Kuzmenko’s production seemed to slow down. It seemed like Kuzmenko was going to be a massive star for the Canucks until his near point-per-game production slowed down to half a point per game production in 2023-24.
To date, Kuzmenko has 157 points (72G, 85A) in 219 career NHL games. He’s only suited up in six NHL postseason contests, all with Los Angeles. He scored six points (3G, 3A) in Los Angeles’ six-game loss to the Edmonton Oilers in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Before coming over to North America to play hockey, Kuzmenko enjoyed a successful four-year run with St. Petersburg SKA of the KHL and parts of four more seasons with CSKA Moscow.
The Yakutsk, Russian-born winger was never drafted into the NHL. He signed as a free agent with the Vancouver Canucks in the 2022 NHL Offseason.
Kuzmenko was also a part of the massive trade haul that Calgary netted for Elias Lindholm. Exactly a year after Kuzmenko’s first trade, he was traded to Philadelphia and was later traded less than two months later to Los Angeles.
Kuzmenko will turn 30 and be an unrestricted free agent when his contract expires at the end of the 2025-26 season.
ITR 47: Then There Was Nothing – Inside The Rink
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