1988–89 Los Angeles Kings season
national Hockey League team season
The 1988–89 Los Angeles Kings season, was the Kings' 22nd season in the National Hockey League (NHL). It saw the Kings finish second in the Smythe Division with a record of 42 wins and 31 losses and 7 losses in overtime for 91 points.
The 1988–89 season was the first for the great Wayne Gretzky in a Kings uniform. He had come over in a shocking trade with the Edmonton Oilers in the off-season (see below). Paced by Gretzky, Los Angeles Kings led the league in goal scoring, with a total of 376 goals scored. In the playoffs, the Kings completed the upset by beating the Oilers (defending champions and Gretzky's former team) in seven games in the Smythe Division Semi-finals before being swept in the Smythe Division Finals by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Calgary Flames in four straight games.
This was also the first season that the Kings wore their silver and black uniforms, which they would wear until the 1997–98 season. In the off-season, they had changed their team colours to silver and black from gold and purple, which were more associated with their co-tenants at the Great Western Forum, the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Lakers. They had also unveiled a new logo that reflected the new team colours.
As of 2025, this remains the most recent season where the Kings eliminated the Oilers in the playoffs as the Kings have lost 7 straight playoff series since, and the Kings are 2–9 all time in series wins against the Oilers.
“1988–89 Los Angeles Kings season” enters the record as national Hockey League team season. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Angeles, Kings and season can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1988–89 Los Angeles Kings season” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Angeles, Kings and season provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4584937. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1988, 1997 and 2025.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1988–89 Los Angeles Kings season”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1988–89 Los Angeles Kings season primary sources, 1988–89 Los Angeles Kings season archive and Angeles research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1988–89 Los Angeles Kings season”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1988–89 Los Angeles Kings season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.