Reunion? Former Vancouver Canucks Defenseman Lands on NHL Waiver Wire By the LA Kings

We're officially in the second month of the National Hockey League's 2025-26 season as the calendar has flipped to November and while it's still quite early, teams around the league are fighting for playoff positioning ahead of American Thanksgiving in a few weeks, which is an important date for teams hoping to make the postseason.

As the Vancouver Canucks prepare for tonight's game against the Minnesota Wild, with the potential of captain Quinn Hughes returning to the lineup, one of the team's former defensemen has landed on the league's waiver wire as he gets set to return from an injury of his own.

In a social media post on Saturday morning, Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman revealed that the Los Angeles Kings have placed defenseman Kyle Burroughs on waivers in order to send him to their American Hockey League affiliate, the Ontario Reign.

Burroughs, 30, was getting ready for his second season with the Los Angeles Kings when he suffered an upper-body injury after blocking a shot in a preseason contest on September 30th against the Utah Mammoth.

Just before the 2025-26 season began, Burroughs was placed on injured reserve (IR) by the Kings and less than a month later, appears to be good to go, but the club wants him to get back up to game speed by suiting up for the Ontario Reign before coming back up to the NHL.

The Vancouver, British Columbia native signed with his hometown Canucks in July 2021 after becoming an unrestricted free agent and went on to appear in 90 games for the club across two seasons, registering ten points (three goals, seven assists), 101 penalty minutes and was a minus-seven.

In 2023, Patrik Allvin made an attempt to keep him in Vancouver, but Burroughs opted for a new challenge and signed a three-year deal with the San Jose Sharks.

After one season in San Jose, the Sharks traded him to the Los Angeles Kings, where he went on to put up three assists, 39 penalty minutes and was a plus-three in 33 games during the 2024-25 campaign.

We'll have to wait and see tomorrow if any team around the league decides to put in a waiver claim on Burroughs, but given that he's returning from injury and the demand for depth defensemen around the league isn't very high at the moment, the most likely scenario is that he'll clear and head to the AHL.