The Los Angeles Kings were without yet another top forward in Monday night’s game against the Colorado Avalanche. Quinton Byfield sat out of the match with an upper-body injury per a team release. It was Byfield’s second absence of the season. The Kings awarded rookies Jared Wright and Kenny Connors with their NHL debuts in relief of the injured Byfield and Andrei Kuzmenko.
It is not clear what the source of Byfield’s injury was. Either way, his absence left the Kings scrambling to fill yet another top-six role, after losing Kevin Fiala to a season-ending injury during the 2026 Winter Olympics. Byfield has made his presence felt in the return from break, with three points in three games since Los Angeles took back to the ice. He has averaged 20 minutes of ice time throughout the season and earned 13 goals, 33 points, and a minus-five in 58 games.
Byfield is scoring at a 47-point pace this season, a step below the pace that led him to 55 and 54 points over the last two seasons respectively. He has stayed a central piece of the Kings’ offense despite that, averaging more ice time than any Kings forward and taking the second-most faceoffs on the team. Byfield’s impact away from the scoresheet has helped the Kings make up for a down year from franchise legend Anze Kopitar, who has only 24 points in 45 games.
Should Byfield need to miss extended time with this absence, the Kings will need to heap even more responsibility onto recent, superstar addition Artemi Panarin. The former New York Rangers scoring leader has notched three assists in his first four games with the Kings. He looked like a dangerous addition to Byfield’s wing but will now serve next to Kopitar, while Alex Turcotte and Connors earn bumps into the middle-six. Neither Connors nor Wright earned a point in their first NHL game but both could have another crack at scoring with injuries piling up in Los Angeles.