1967–68 Los Angeles Kings season

1967–68 Los Angeles Kings
Division	2nd West
1967–68 record	31–33–10
Home record	20-13-4
Road record	11-20-6
Goals for	200
Goals against	224
Team information
General manager	Larry Regan
Coach	Red Kelly
Captain	Bob Wall
Alternate captains	Eddie Joyal Bill White Dale Rolfe
Arena	Long Beach Arena Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena Los Angeles Forum
Team leaders
Goals	Bill Flett (26)
Assists	Eddie Joyal (34)
Points	Eddie Joyal (57)
Penalty minutes	Dave Amadio (101)
Wins	Wayne Rutledge (20)
Goals against average	Wayne Rutledge (2.87)

The 1967–68 Los Angeles Kings season was the franchise's 1st season in the National Hockey League. The Kings finished 2nd in the West Division and lost in the Division Semi-finals to the St. Louis Blues 4 games to 3.

Off-season

The Kings were one of six expansion teams, which doubled the size of the league from six to twelve. The Kings were placed in the newly established West Division, along with the other expansion teams: the California Seals, Minnesota North Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues.

The Kings picked goaltenders Terry Sawchuk and Wayne Rutledge with their first picks of the Expansion Draft, but the Kings did not rely on the draft. Owner Jack Kent Cooke purchased the American Hockey League's Springfield Indians for $1 million to bolster the Kings roster. Long-time Indians player Brian Kilrea would score the Kings' first goal.

Bill White and Bob Wall's 1967-68 style jerseys.

The Kings inaugural jersey colours were purple and gold with a primarily purple home jersey and a primarily gold away jersey. The jerseys had one stripe on the arms and body (on the purple jersey the body stripe was at the bottom while on the gold jersey it was near the bottom), no names on the back and the jersey numbers were not outlined. The logo was a white, purple and gold crown. These jerseys would remain in use with very minor modifications for the next decade.

Pre-season

Eddie Joyal and Bob Baun, wearing the Seals pre-season jersey.

The Kings held their training camp in Guelph, Ontario.

September 18, 1967: Minnesota North Stars 7, Los Angeles Kings 3 @ Hamilton, Ontario
September 19, 1967: Los Angeles 6, Minnesota 2 @ Guelph, Ontario
September 24, 1967: Minnesota 3, Los Angeles 0 @ Oshawa, Ontario

Regular Season

Brian Smith scores his first career goal, October 22, 1967.

The Kings played their home games in three locations during that inaugural campaign. They alternated between both the Long Beach Arena and the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena before the brand new arena built by Cooke and known as The Forum would become their permanent home. In the first game ever at The Forum, they lost 2-0 to the Philadelphia Flyers. This loss came back to haunt them as they finished in 2nd place, one point behind the Flyers.

The Los Angeles Kings were a team that writers predicted to finish last in the new West Division. Surprisingly, the Kings finished second, just one point out of first. Bill Flett scored 26 goals, while Eddie Joyal scored 23 goals, adding 34 assists for 57 points and was the second leading scorer in the West Division.

Bill Masterton sets up Dave Balon, January 3, 1968.

On December 13, 1967, the Minnesota North Stars and Cesare Maniago achieved the first shutout in team history, defeating the Los Angeles Kings 4-0. Maniago and the North Stars went on a shutout streak, beating the Kings 3-0 on December 15 and the Oakland Seals 1-0 on December 16. Maniago had his 4th shutout on January 3, 1968 as the Stars blanked the Kings for the third time, by 6-0. Maniago finished the season with 6 shutouts, tied for second best in the league and the most in a season in his career.

First goal of Gerry Ehman's hat trick, January 7, 1968.

Goalie Jacques Caron played his first NHL game on December 27, 1967 in a 4-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues. Mike Corrigan and Larry Johnston played their first NHL game on December 30, 1967 as the Kings lost to the Philadelphia Flyers 2-0. Corrigan would play over 400 games for Los Angeles.

The Kings were the only team the Seals had some success against. In January 1968, Oakland won all three games versus Los Angeles, including shutting them out twice. Gerry Ehman had the Seals only Hat trick of the season in one of these games, on January 7, 1968 in a 6-0 win. The season series ended 4-4-2 between the teams.

Glen Sather scores the game winner, February 18, 1968.

The Kings combined to go 20-13-4 in their 37 home games spread over 3 arenas that first season. On the road, Los Angeles posted a record of just 11-20-6. The Kings finished a surprising second place in the Western Conference behind the coaching of Red Kelly, who as a player holds the distinction of playing on the most Stanley Cup championship teams without any of them including time in Montreal. The goaltending tandem of future hall of famer Terry Sawchuk and Wayne Rutledge allowed the team to stay in most games. The Kings had the best record of any of the expansion teams against the "Original Six", going a respectable 10-12-2, including winning their first two games ever against the storied Montreal Canadiens.

Final Standings

West Division

	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	PTS
Philadelphia Flyers	74	31	32	11	173	179	73
Los Angeles Kings	74	31	33	10	200	224	72
St. Louis Blues	74	27	31	16	177	191	70
Minnesota North Stars	74	27	32	15	191	226	69
Pittsburgh Penguins	74	27	34	13	195	216	67
Oakland Seals	74	15	42	17	153	219	47

Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against, Pts = Points
Teams that qualified for the playoffs are highlighted in bold.

Playoffs

Minnesota North Stars 4, Los Angeles Kings 3

Doug Robinson and Lowell MacDonald led all Kings playoff scorers with 7 points, while Eddie Joyal and Gord Labossiere had 5 points each.

Date	Away	Score	Home	Score	Notes
April 4	Minnesota	1	Los Angeles	2
April 6	Minnesota	0	Los Angeles	2
April 9	Los Angeles	5	Minnesota	7
April 11	Los Angeles	2	Minnesota	3
April 13	Minnesota	2	Los Angeles	3
April 16	Los Angeles	3	Minnesota	4	(OT)
April 18	Minnesota	9	Los Angeles	4

Player Stats

Forwards

Note: GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; PIM = Penalty minutes

#	Player	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
16	Eddie Joyal	74	23	34	57	20
17	Bill Flett	73	26	20	46	97
11	Lowell MacDonald	74	21	24	45	12
15	Ted Irvine	73	18	22	40	26
20	Gord Labossiere	68	13	27	40	31
9	Real Lemieux	74	12	23	35	60
7	Terry Gray	65	12	16	28	22
19, 23	Howie Menard	35	9	15	24	32
10	Howie Hughes	74	9	14	23	20
12	Bryan Campbell	44	6	15	21	16
8	Brian Smith	58	10	9	19	33
23	Doug Robinson	34	9	9	18	6
19	Brian Kilrea	25	3	5	8	12
22	Jim Anderson	7	1	2	3	2
22	Bill Inglis	12	1	1	2	0
19	Mike Corrigan	5	0	0	0	2

Defencemen

Note: GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; PIM = Penalty minutes

#	Player	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
21	Bill White	74	11	27	38	100
2	Bob Wall	71	5	18	23	66
6	Dale Rolfe	68	3	13	16	84
4, 5	Brent Hughes	44	4	10	14	36
3, 5	Dave Amadio	58	4	6	10	101
4	Jacques Lemieux	16	0	3	3	8
4	Jim Murray	30	0	2	2	14
3	Poul Popiel	1	0	0	0	0
5	Larry Johnston	4	0	0	0	4

Goaltending

Note: GP = Games played; MIN = Minutes; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; SO = Shutouts; GAA = Goals against average

#	Player	GP	MIN	W	L	T	SO	GAA
1	Wayne Rutledge	45	2444	20	18	4	2	2.87
30	Terry Sawchuk	36	1936	11	14	6	2	3.07
30	Jacques Caron	1	60	0	1	0	0	4.00

Awards and Records

• Team Records:
  • Fastest two goals, 6 seconds apart, Bill Flett at 9:14 of first period, and Eddie Joyal at 9:20 on March 10, 1968.
  • Fewest short-handed goals against in season, 3
  • Most shutouts against in season, 9

Milestones

     Player is still active or individual record

Regular season
Player	Milestone	Reached
Brian Kilrea	First Kings goal	October 14, 1967

Transactions

• June 8, 1967 – Acquired the rights to Red Kelly from Toronto for Ken Block.
• June 16, 1967 – Acquired Trevor Fahey, Jim Murray and Ken Turlik from the New York for Barclay Plager.

Draft Picks

NHL Draft

See also: 1967 NHL Entry Draft

Round	Pick	Player	Nationality
1	1	Rick Pagnutti	Canada

LA Kings primary logo

Expansion Draft

• Los Angeles Kings selections

#	Player	Drafted from
1.	Terry Sawchuk (G)	Toronto Maple Leafs
2.	Wayne Rutledge (G)	New York Rangers
3.	Gord Labossiere (C)	Montreal Canadiens
4.	Bob Wall (D)	Detroit Red Wings
5.	Eddie Joyal (C)	Toronto Maple Leafs
6.	Réal Lemieux (W)	Detroit Red Wings
7.	Poul Popiel (D)	Boston Bruins
8.	Terry Gray (RW)	Detroit Red Wings
9.	Bryan Campbell (C)	New York Rangers
10.	Ted Irvine (LW)	Boston Bruins
11.	Howie Hughes (RW)	Montreal Canadiens
12.	Bill Inglis (C)	Montreal Canadiens
13.	Doug Robinson (LW)	New York Rangers
14.	Mike Corrigan (LW)	Toronto Maple Leafs
15.	Jacques Lemieux (LW)	Montreal Canadiens
16.	Lowell MacDonald (LW)	Toronto Maple Leafs
17.	Ken Block (D)	New York Rangers
18.	Bill Flett (RW)	Toronto Maple Leafs
19.	Brent Hughes (D)	Detroit Red Wings
20.	Marc Dufour (RW)	New York Rangers

Farm Teams

• Springfield Indians (American Hockey League)

Trivia

• Kings who recorded a hat trick this season include:
  • Bill Flett during the 6-4 win over the Detroit Red Wings on November 5, 1967.
  • Lowell MacDonald during the 4-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens on November 19, 1967.
  • Bill Flett during the 8-6 win over Detroit on February 1, 1968.

Gallery

Pre-season @ Barrie, Ontario

John Bucyk scores one of his two goals in the 2-0 win over the Los Angeles Kings on October 26, 1967.

Gerry Melnyk from Don McKenney and Red Berenson, December 27, 1967.

North Stars and Kings in 1967-68 season action.

References

• Kings on Hockey Database