Dean trading first round picks for players in their prime and with term on their contracts is vastly different than trading for Lucic or Sekera all for naught.
Were those guys in their primes though? Penner was 28, Richards 26, and Carter just turned 27. That's
a prime, but generally not the offensive one. It's more of a general prime, when all aspects of a player start coming together, but it's also when you start getting old. You're not supposed to give guys in their late 20's long contracts, but the Kings took on a few players in their later 20's with long contracts. As a free agent, not a good idea, but in a trade, it's fine?
Sekera was almost 29, and Lucic just turned 27. By the time Sekera and Lucic rolled around, adding even more guys with term on their contracts was even harder to do, as the team already had so many. By that time, they already had 2 Cups, and DL was trying to win as many in as short amount of time as he could. That's what he was building toward between 2006 and 2011. Any talk of competing for decades like Detroit was crazy. It sounds great, but politicians promise the world too. There's a reason Detroit is just about the one example of not only competing that long, but with Cups scattered over a large span of time.
Time and time again, I criticize several of Blake's moves but I also criticize Dean's. Dean gets more rope with me because he delivered two Cups while Blake seems to get a ton of rope with some of you simply because he isn't the Dean Lombardi of the 2014 off-season through to his firing. He gets credit for a prospect pool that has not proven anything and his bad hirings and mostly-poor asset management are somehow not his fault because Lombardi traded for Lucic and held on to his guys too long: the same guys that Blake continued to hold and finally run into the ground.
This is why you're not supposed to compare a current spouse to a former one right? Really no winning. I'm not sure how you get to use DL's success after his first 2.5-3 years on the job against Blake, but then also use Blake's unknown future against him as well. As you and others have done, keep it to the first 3 years. Even though, as everyone knows, DL and Blake didn't start in the same place. The Kings had missed the playoffs for 3 years in a row when DL got the job, and Blake had former Cup winners, big contracts, a Norris level defenseman, etc.
Anyway, as of Jan 2009, what prospects that DL drafted had proven anything? Doughty, but he was a consensus top of the draft, no doubt, NHL ready 18 year old. Is the difference between 2 and 3 coaches really that large? Are we considering Desjardins as anything more than a guy that would answer the phone after the season had already started for the worst team in the league?
For Blake to do anything tangible is going to take time. There really aren’t many attractive trade options to move. It’s not like he is in any position to move a Schenn, Simmonds and a 1st for a veteran, nor does he have a Tim Gleason and Eric Belanger to move for Jack Johnson.
And take Tverdovsky back. And wait for Johnson to finish his time in school before getting NHL experience. Which was the only reason Johnson was available for so little in the first place. The current Cup winner had lost a few guys to free agency, but they lucked into being able to draft Johnson, but he didn't want to play yet, so Carolina traded him for veterans to help today.
Of course, which is why I'm not saying he's complete trash. He just doesn't get a complete free pass from me and he most definitely does not get a free pass and high praise: that's just wild. I understand that there are certain players that are basically impossible to move but, again, he held everyone and ran it back in 2018. I do believe he could have traded Carter but, pretending he couldn't, he could have moved Muzzin/Martinez/Toffoli/Pearson. He thought he had a contender and was wrong.
Dean thought he had one and traded for Sekera. Then Lucic. He was wrong but at least it was close to the Cup years and not the 2018 season.
"He'd be crazy to trade those guys. Everyone here would have hated it!" Sure. Not everyone is fond of trading your leading scorer from the year prior and then trading your best defenseman the next off-season. Both became key moves to the Kings winning two Cups. I mean, pretty wild to trade Visnovsky for Stoll and Greene. That is a move made because there is a clear vision from the outset. It was ruthless but part of the culture thing he was trying to build: too bad he forgot about that when it came time to decide on Richards and hand out extensions.
Again, using DL's success years later against Blake, who hasn't had a chance at the years later yet. Stoll and Greene were established players, in their mid 20's, had no room for further development, who had both played in the Final. Nobody seems to want players that fit those categories for anyone on the current roster. It's all prospects and picks. If that's the ask, it's going to take more time. Carter for a couple 25 year old role players at $3m each with 2/3 years of term? Yeah, that could probably get done today. Probably could've gotten done in 2017. Would 2 Iafallo's for Carter get people excited?
Lombardi did an amazing job of building a team around the future star players he inherited and made some really nice trades leading up to 2012. The problem is it's just hard to build a winner by trades when you draft so poorly. Because eventually you run out of young assets to trade for veterans. Plenty of other GM's have tried the model the Kings used (Trade all the youth and be good for 3 years and hope to win). The Kings won twice, but it's probably not an ideal way to construct a team, and fans on this board have correctly been critical of other GM's who tried it and didn't win. We heard rhetoric about building a team that was going to contend for a decade, build from within, but really the Kings ended up only having a three year window.
In some ways it has surprised me that Dean hasn't gotten another shot as a GM because he did win it all twice and that does count for something, especially the 2013-2014 season when the Kings started the year with 2 players who weren't NHL caliber players skating on their 2nd line. To get that team to a SC was a pretty strong. On the other hand 14-17 was about as bad as it gets for an NHL GM (I think only Milbury at the turn of the decade was clearly worse). The Richards non-buyout was dereliction of duty and the Lucic trade is going to be one of those trades that is going to negatively effect the team for 10+ years.
And the amount of good fortune that went the Kings way in 13-14. They were down 0-3, and didn't look much better than the 15-16 team. They were probably one bad period from getting rid of Richards, then letting not only Mitchell, but Greene and Gaborik walk as well. Maybe getting rid of a couple other guys, since without 13-14, the Kings are a one hit wonder, and getting older. It did take three Game 7's. It did take three OT wins on home ice in the Final. If it's just the one Cup, does Kopitar get as much? Bergeron didn't. If it's just the one Cup, Gaborik doesn't get paid for his 14 playoff goals. If it's just the one Cup, do they hand the store to Doughty?
The cracks were probably already there, but the run was so special, and so unique, that it is what led to DL not being able to let go of Richards, or think of the team in such a way that he thought Lucic could help. Success was just too recent at the time. Had it just been 2012, and had the Kings gone out any time in 2014, but especially in the 1st round, there's no way the Sekera and Lucic trades ever happen. There's no cockroaches. There's no more just get in. That would've worked just the one time. It would've reinforced nothing. You see a team having to scratch and claw for every inch against the Blues and Sharks in 2013, barely getting by them.
Perhaps it was the way they won in 2014 that will have negatively effected the team for 10+ years.
Dean's love for the Lewis', King's and Nolan's of the world did him in. That would be like the 92-93 Kings refusing to move on from Conacher, Rychel and Schuchuk. These are very marginal NHL players and they should always be fluid. The fact that Lewis is still on this team is sickening.
Again, maybe it's that reinforcing 2nd Cup at work. You win 1, ok, good for you. You get 2 in 3 years, that should be a special mix of players. With Lewis being one of those glue type guys, he's an ingredient. Not that the 92-93 Kings won.
Had they drafted better, maybe Lewis could've been allowed to walk after 2016. Had DL had a different mindset in how to manage a winning team, maybe Lewis would've been allowed to walk after 2016.
