The Kings signed defenseman Jacob Moverare to a two-year contract extension on Wednesday with an annual average value of up to $762,500.

Moverare, 23, made his NHL debut last season in a loss to the Nashville Predators. While the Kings are generally drawn toward downplaying their success – goalie Jonathan Quick recently said a shutout victory in a pivotal playoff match was “no more important than any other game” – Moverare offered some refreshing ebullience as he smiled, laughed and generally beamed after the contest despite the team falling short that night.

Yet Moverare was more than just a grinning extra in the backdrop of a Kings season that offered plenty of opportunities for young defensemen. At a position that usually accounts for six players in the lineup, the Kings used 14 different players last season, and dressed Moverare on 19 occasions. He recorded two points, both assists, while taking just one penalty and skating to a plus-three rating. A defensive defenseman with some passing savvy, Moverare’s low-event ice time was exactly what the Kings had hoped for when he was pressed into duty.

Moverare was a fourth-round selection in the 2016 NHL entry draft. He split the early years of his career between Canada and his native Sweden before a brief stint in Finland and his arrival in North America last season for an abbreviated campaign with the Kings’ top minor-league affiliate. In Sweden, he won a championship in 2019 with Frolunda HC. During his junior hockey days in Canada, he served as an alternate captain for the Mississauga Steelheads.

Standing 6-foot-3 and weighing around 210 pounds, Moverare offers size and reach to go along with solid puck-moving skills. His confidence and aggression both grew as he saw more minutes, ultimately averaging 16:20 per game.

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Moverare was part of a painstaking effort to deepen the Kings’ defense corps that seemed to materialize overnight, and under duress at that. Their revolving door on defense was propelled by a pair of losses to waiver claims and a torrent of injuries. Where only a season earlier, just two injuries to their group on the blue line rendered the Kings utterly dysfunctional, this year they were able to weather a stretch during which all six of their opening-night defenders were unavailable.

The right side of the Kings’ defense, as right defenseman Drew Doughty remarked last month, is stacked between Doughty, Matt Roy, Sean Walker, Sean Durzi and Jordan Spence, all of whom contributed last season. Meanwhile, Brandt Clarke, Brock Faber and Helge Grans are the Kings’ most coveted defense prospects, and they are all right-handed shots as well.

But the left side is less concrete, as veterans Alex Edler and Olli Maatta are currently not under contract and appear headed for the open market on July 13 when free agency opens. Mikey Anderson’s footing seems firm, though Tobias Bjornfot found himself a healthy scratch late in last season. Barring a re-signing or offseason acquisition, Moverare projects to be penciled into the left side of the third pairing, though plenty could change between now and the start of the season this autumn.