The Los Angeles chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) announced today that defenseman Drew Doughty is the LA Kings’ nominee for the 2025 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy.
The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy is awarded each year in recognition of the NHL player who “best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey.” Each of the league’s 32 member clubs will have one player nominated, as determined by the members of the PWHA who cover that team.
Doughty, 35, was sidelined just before the start of his 17th NHL season after suffering a fractured ankle and ligament damage on his opening shift of the Kings’ first preseason game in Vegas last September. Doughty missed the first 48 games of the regular-season before making his debut on Jan. 29 in Florida where he led all Kings skaters with 23:51 minutes of time-on-ice (TOI).
Six games after returning to the lineup, Doughty was selected by Team Canada to represent his home country at the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off where he was victorious while recording one assist in four games. Of his 28 games played this season, Doughty has averaged 24 minutes or more in TOI as part of a team-high 24:18 minutes of TOI/GP average, including a season-high 31:09 minutes on April 8 vs. Anaheim.
On March 27, Doughty skated in his 1,200th career NHL game, becoming the first defenseman in team history, and the 39th blueliner in league history, to reach that mark. In 1,205 career regular-season games, Doughty has recorded 160 goals and 686 points (160-526=686) with a cumulative plus-69 rating. His assists, points, even-strength goals (77), overtime goals (8) and game-winning goals (34) pace all defensemen in Kings history while his 160 goals sit one shy of tying Rob Blake for most all-time. The veteran blueliner’s 1,205 games are the fifth-most games played by a defensemen for a single franchise.
A two-time Stanley Cup Champion with the Kings in 2012 and 2014, Doughty has earned numerous accolades over his career, including two Olympic gold medals, (2010, 14), one 4 Nations Face-Off Championship (2025), one Norris Trophy (2016; 3x finalist) and five NHL All Star nods (2014-19).
