Ahead of the last season, LA Kings gave goalie Cal Petersen a significant extension to tie him to the franchise 2024/25. Now, just a bit over a year later, the Kings are sending Petersen to AHL.
Petersen had a rough stretch to start the 2022-23 NHL campaign, which included allowing four goals from the 16 shots he faced during a recent overtime loss to the Seattle Kraken. As a result, the Kings decided to put him on waivers.
As expected, no one wanted Petersen’s three-year, $15 million on their hands, causing him to clear waivers and allow the Kings to send him to their AHL affiliate Ontario Reign.
Speaking about the decision, Kings’ general manager Rob Blake said that the idea is to give Petersen as much game time as possible in AHL. The coaching staff hopes this will get him in form and build his confidence.
“I think the idea here is Cal can go down and get that structure that we believe in, and come back up and help us. I mean, that’s as simple as it gets,” Blake said.
Kings signed Cal Petersen on a big-time extension after he had a 2.89 goals-against average and .911 save percentage in 35 games in 2020-21. The franchise hoped he could be their goalkeeper of the future, but that is now in big doubt as he only has a 3.75 goals-against average and .868 save percentage in 10 games he played this season.
