2016 LA Kings Offseason GDT V: Free Agent Frenzy
- Thread starter Raccoon Jesus
- Start date
-
Xenforo Cloud will be upgrading us to version 2.3.5 on March 3rd at 12 AM GMT. This version has increased stability and fixes several bugs. We expect downtime for the duration of the update. The admin team will continue to work on existing issues, templates and upgrade all necessary available addons to minimize impact of this new version. Click Here for Updates
KingCanadain1976
Registered User
only thing that makes any sense is a trade of at least one of our defenseman and at least one forward ( my hope is king) and acquire a better 3c then dowd
KingsFan7824
Registered User
- Dec 4, 2003
- 19,537
- 7,615
All of which can still happen.
Barely any money tied up in Gilbert or Trotman, and it's for 1 year.
The picture doesn't need to be clear on July 13th. If they manage to have too many defensemen, anything that happens after that is pretty much ok. Even if they lose a guy on waivers, that means 7 or 8 other guys did something positive. You'd rather deal with something, than scramble for an answer.
for muzzin HELLL NO!!
Martinez? Maybe but where would that leave LA in a year as it is reported Shattenkirk wants to play out east
KingsFan7824
Registered User
- Dec 4, 2003
- 19,537
- 7,615
Which does what? And another UFA to be? Is that the fan debate road the Kings need to go down again at this time? For proven guys that are signed for multiple years?
What's Shattenkirk going to get in free agency? About what Yandle got? The Kings can't afford another $6m guy, when they've already got another one coming with Toffoli, and they still have Brown. They're not trading Muzzin or Martinez for 1 year of Shattenkirk.
The Brown contract was stupid when it was handed out. 8 years for a player that relies on Kopitar to generate his offense, when the team is looking at Kopitar adjusting his game which leaves Brown putting up 11G's. Brown needs to be on a grinding line. The last time he was playing well was with Stoll and Williams picking up the garbage. There were comments mad around that time about Kopitar "evolving" his game. Knowing the Kings wanted that change, the Brown contract was just dumb.
Yes the D is garbage. Just because the goals against is near the best in the league doesn't mean ****.
Kings play a game designed to limit chances. With the same caliber defense as a run and gun team they'd come out with a better goals against. It doesn't mean the defense is actually better. Right now the Kings have 3 top 4 defenders. Then the final 3 spots will be filled with Scuderi/Greene/McNabb/Gravel/Forbort/Gilbert/Some random guy form Boston.... That's pretty much the definition of garbage. Just wait. You'll see.
The Brown contract was stupid when it was handed out. 8 years for a player that relies on Kopitar to generate his offense, when the team is looking at Kopitar adjusting his game which leaves Brown putting up 11G's. Brown needs to be on a grinding line. The last time he was playing well was with Stoll and Williams picking up the garbage. There were comments mad around that time about Kopitar "evolving" his game. Knowing the Kings wanted that change, the Brown contract was just dumb.
Yes the D is garbage. Just because the goals against is near the best in the league doesn't mean ****.
Right now the Kings have 3 top 4 defenders. Then the final 3 spots will be filled with Scuderi/Greene/McNabb/Gravel/Forbort/Gilbert/Some random guy form Boston.... That's pretty much the definition of garbage. Just wait. You'll see.
The D is far from Garbage. Any team with Doughty and Muzzin on the backend cannot be described as Garbage.
Not to mention the team D LA has is amazing.Most of LA's forwards are not liabilities in the defensive zone.
Edit:
Compare top 6 D to other team's within division and I would take LA's over Arizona, Calgary (close), Edmonton, San Jose (close), and Vancouver with a push with Anaheim just do to their young d-men. So top D in the division.
King/Lewis/Brown vs King/Dowd/Lewis... Yeah.. I'd take King/Dowd/Lewis, but does it really matter? Kings have tons of "effective" 3rd liners that don't score and are better at defensing then Brown.
Guess I'm just over Brown. If he plays really well this year the Kings might be able to lose him in the expansion. He probably won't and the Kings will probably just be stuck with him until it gets bad enough to buy him out.
You can see what Sutter thinks of the defense by how much he's been riding Doughty. Pretty much no confidence is what I read from that.
Great... so 2 defenders... Martinez is a decent top 4 guy... Doughty's really good, but unfortunately he can't play the whole game and the Kings need more then 3 defenders to compete... so the D is garbage until the depth is addressed.
Edit: Remember when Scuderi/Schenn were both in the top 4 because Martinez pulled his groin or something? Garbage. lol...
can you please tell me what D in the division is better than the king's? Yes LA rides Doughty but that's what happens when you have an elite level player in any position.
I had no problem with Schenn being a #5 that can play#4 in case of emergency. That will be Gilbert this year and I am ok with that too.
Garbage is a gross exaggeration.
I would have rather had Jamie McGinn at 3 million and 27 years old than Lewis at 2 million at 29 years old and Purcell, at 30, for over 1.4.
McGinn probably would have taken less and then the Kings could have give that 3rd line RW spot to another young player.
McGinn probably would have taken less and then the Kings could have give that 3rd line RW spot to another young player.
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
Thank goodness it's Eklund but really we have enough LHD that are better than him at what he does, it's just another redundancy that wouldn't even make sense tbh.
As others have mentioned Schultz isn't a worry. Gilbert kind of is but makes sense at vet depth. no one knows anything about Greene except that he's allegedly healthy, so let's pretend he is. That gives us Greene, Gilbert, Scuderi as veteran depth redundancy, that's fine, waive a guy.
Trotman makes a LOT more sense than those guys, imo, because he fills the RHD prospect depth gap between--this is awful--Doughty, Greene, and LaDue. He's NHL-ready so there's that.
Gilbert strikes me as an Ehrhoff-type gamble. Prior to last year, he was a stable 2nd-pairing d-man; his knee injury ripped up his season but hopefully not his career. Seems like a low risk signing, one that is unlikely to pan out, but a bridge guy worth a risk and at good value for one year.
Honestly they all make sense to me. I'd rather have a logjam and scrap the expendables later than go "our only RHD behind Doughty is Paul Ladue."
But I agree with the HEART of what you're getting at, and that's that Gravel and Forbort need NHL minutes.
The Brown contract was stupid when it was handed out. 8 years for a player that relies on Kopitar to generate his offense, when the team is looking at Kopitar adjusting his game which leaves Brown putting up 11G's. Brown needs to be on a grinding line. The last time he was playing well was with Stoll and Williams picking up the garbage. There were comments mad around that time about Kopitar "evolving" his game. Knowing the Kings wanted that change, the Brown contract was just dumb.
Yes the D is garbage. Just because the goals against is near the best in the league doesn't mean ****.
Right now the Kings have 3 top 4 defenders. Then the final 3 spots will be filled with Scuderi/Greene/McNabb/Gravel/Forbort/Gilbert/Some random guy form Boston.... That's pretty much the definition of garbage. Just wait. You'll see.
no one was able to foresee Brown having such a sharp decline, just because the contract looks bad now doesnt mean it was bad the day it was signed. it might have been a little long, but thats how big contracts work in this league. you sign them for a little longer than you want for the peace of mind you get by having them during their good years. the problem is Brown's good years seem to be over. did you see that happening? I didnt, and Im sure Dean didnt either.
as for the defense, the combination of: Doughty, Muzzin, Martinez and McNabb (yes, Im including him) is already better than 3/4 of the league. please go into detail with some evidence or show me some statistics that lend credence to your opinion that our defense will lead the Kings to a bottom 5 finish next year, because all Im seeing is a lot of huffing and puffing based on nothing more than a misinformed hypothesis. how is a team that has been in the top 5 lowest GAA going to experience a monumental drop off in just one season? I think you want the Kings to do badly just based on your posts in this thread. sure, we could use some talent on the backend, but with the talent we DO have and with the staunch defensive system the Kings play there is nothing that leads me to believe they will **** the bed next season. its just not going to happen
BigKing
Blake Out of Hell III: Back in to Hell
The contract was fine but everyone knew it would eventually be a problem with "eventually" not being Year 1 of the contract. The cap stagnating definitely hasn't helped either but signing anyone long-term comes with the risk of the cap not playing nice for the entirety of the term.
Ever check out the actual money being paid? Did he seriously receive $9.25MM in actual money for the 2015 season and $7.25MM last year. Woah boy.
For those hoping for Vegas, that is $6.5MM in actual dollars they would have to pay him, although the following season is where he may be desirable as his actual salary is lower than the cap hit, plus the cap will hopefully have increased a decent amount by that time. Problem is that is two full seasons away.
I've been there for nearly every one of his Kings games in LA. Awesome player to watch and one of the only fun things about most of the late '00s. It seems kind of ridiculous at this point, but I still have this little feeling that he can turn it around, and by that I mean ~15 goals and a return to hits that matter.
As for the defense being "garbage", it is more of a commentary on the depth. Sure, they are screwed if Doughty would go down but a lot of the teams in the league are screwed without their #1 defenseman: especially someone leaned on as much as Doughty. The problem is that this team no longer has the depth to handle an injury to friggin Alec Martinez. The "Top 5" defense from last year had all of the important hands on deck until Martinez went down with that resulting in flubbing the division and getting throttled by San Jose.
Think I said it in May or who knows when, but next season hinges on the youth being better than what was there last year and the "free agent frenzy" just solidifies that notion. Gravel, Forbort and the rest are going to have to be good quickly. This team is not going to score as much as it did last season so the defense will have to be even better.
Feel like Quick is going to have to go 2012 regular season Quick to keep this team firmly in the mix.
Ever check out the actual money being paid? Did he seriously receive $9.25MM in actual money for the 2015 season and $7.25MM last year. Woah boy.
For those hoping for Vegas, that is $6.5MM in actual dollars they would have to pay him, although the following season is where he may be desirable as his actual salary is lower than the cap hit, plus the cap will hopefully have increased a decent amount by that time. Problem is that is two full seasons away.
I've been there for nearly every one of his Kings games in LA. Awesome player to watch and one of the only fun things about most of the late '00s. It seems kind of ridiculous at this point, but I still have this little feeling that he can turn it around, and by that I mean ~15 goals and a return to hits that matter.
As for the defense being "garbage", it is more of a commentary on the depth. Sure, they are screwed if Doughty would go down but a lot of the teams in the league are screwed without their #1 defenseman: especially someone leaned on as much as Doughty. The problem is that this team no longer has the depth to handle an injury to friggin Alec Martinez. The "Top 5" defense from last year had all of the important hands on deck until Martinez went down with that resulting in flubbing the division and getting throttled by San Jose.
Think I said it in May or who knows when, but next season hinges on the youth being better than what was there last year and the "free agent frenzy" just solidifies that notion. Gravel, Forbort and the rest are going to have to be good quickly. This team is not going to score as much as it did last season so the defense will have to be even better.
Feel like Quick is going to have to go 2012 regular season Quick to keep this team firmly in the mix.
Last edited:
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
For all this talk about the defense--which I do think is overblown right now--I do think Quick is the key player next year. "good" might not be good enough.
kingsfan28
Its A Kingspiracy !
I expect Sutter to say "Needs to be better" more than a few times to Alex Curry and the like after losing another game 2-1.
kingsfan28
Its A Kingspiracy !
No way, DL is saving all his monies to get in on that Jimmy Vesey FA action in August.
No way, DL is saving all his monies to get in on that Jimmy Vesey FA action in August.
I hope, but i think he wants to stay in the east.
Either the defense is good enough to win a playoff game or it's garbage. Stocking it with guys like Gilbert/Ehrhoff as top4 stopgaps for when Gravel/Forbort don't magically turn into that next year is garbage. The D is either good enough to get the job done or it isn't.
To make matters worse Sutter is all about defense first and everything is based off that. When you don't have a defense that can get it done, Sutter's system isn't going to work for ****.
Defense first team built on Scuderi/Greene/Gilbert.... Garbage.
A little long? Brown signed until he's 37? That contract was bad the day it was signed. I guess the hope was that Brown wouldn't start sucking for at least a couple of years, but $6M for Brown until 37? That is ****ing terrible.
Pretty much my read on the Kings next year is the offense isn't going to be as good as last year. You're looking at ****/Kopitar/Gaborik, Pearson/Carter/Toffoli... the 3rd line will be brutal (with regards to point production).... to fill out that top 6 you have Purcell/Brown.... that doesn't account for when someone is injured. Add to that and average (best case scenario) defense and it's just not looking pretty right now.
Kings needed a 3C, top 4D, top 6 wing, and got Lewis/Gilbert/Purcell...
Also, Yes! If the Kings aren't going to be putting a team together that can compete for the cup they need to dive this boat right to the bottom to get add an impact player on an ELC, before guys like Carter/Quick get too long in the tooth.
Edit: Would like to add a contract to a physical player structured the way it is with a buyout cap hit of around 3.6M for 2 years when that player is 36-37 is awful as well.
Last edited:
The defense is not built on Scuderi/Greene/Gilbert it is built on Doughty, Muzzin, Martinez.
Gilbert is not top 4 stop gaps (maybe the hope was Ehrhoff would have been) they are brought in to solidify the bottom pair and move up in case of injury.
I have asked repeatedly, what in-division team has a better D then LA?
Completely agree. Quick had a down year by his standards. I really do not feel the vezna nomination was justified for this past year.
If it was justified it is remarkable that people think the king's D is garbage considering they have the reigning Selke and Norris winners as well as a Vezana nominated goalie. Man times are tough right?
KopitarFAN
Reno Sucks!
No way, DL is saving all his monies to get in on that Jimmy Vesey FA action in August.
He can only sign an ELC, so the cap isn't really an issue for anybody, except Pittsburgh.
some ELC can carry so many bonues the cap hit is over $3M. Would he not be inline for that?
