I've been saying it for several years now. Kings have a lot of unmoveable vets or they're more valuable staying here than being moved. They shoulda moved Clifford last year when he was at his peak. Shoulda moved Lewis a couple seasons ago. Those are guys you can get good value for because every contender needs depth. Most contenders don't need a Kopitar because they already got their Kopitar and that's why they're contenders.
But nobody needs Clifford or Lewis with a year or two left on their contracts. Perfect deadline rentals that won't cost much, but who wants to have to account for them beyond that? But, DL gives Clifford a 5 year deal, Lewis a 4 year deal, and only now can we finally start seeing them leave.
Only a few Toffoli, Carter, and maybe even Quick on a good team if they're injured. While quick sucks ass, he can be sheltered by a good defensive team but it'd be difficult.
My point was that they waited too long to do anything meaningful.
Of course they did, but that's the direction they chose to go. Toffoli will be traded in the next few months. There was never a good time to trade Carter. He was already 30 in Jan 2015, with 7 more years left. As a free agent, sure, someone would've given him a 7 year contract. Even if someone would've traded for him sometime after that, DL wasn't doing it. He gave Clifford a 5 year deal in Feb 2015. He gave Lewis a 4 year deal in June 2016. There was never a thought of trading Carter. It wasn't an option. No thought, or realistic possibility of trading Quick anytime during the 10 year contract.
DL solidified the roster to be here forever. That was his whole schtick. We keep having all these discussions about what they could've gotten when the run was clearly over after 14-15, when it doesn't matter. There weren't even any rumors about trade returns at the time, because DL wasn't thinking about it. After 16-17, Carter was 32 with 5 years left. Go around the league over the last however many years and find the number of 32 year olds with 5 years left that got traded. There aren't many.
As I said, Kopitar and Doughty etc are paycheck players with the Kings. They aren’t leaders, they won’t lead the young guys coming up anywhere. They certainly aren’t stars anymore.
Kings need to move on, and start rebuilding towards a team they envision to have to win a cup again. This current group of paycheck players isn’t going to win anymore.
They've already done this. This started last year with the Pearson trade, and certainly with the Muzzin deal. They've already moved on from the Cup teams that nobody wants to hear about anymore. They've said they cannot win any time soon. They just can't get rid of the people we want them to get rid of, so we're left watching this zombie team. They've got a handful of UFA's this year that should all be gone. The transition will continue, but it's going to be slow. That's the reality in a hard cap league.
Don't want ufas. Who's turning on Lizotte? Haven't seen anyone say that. Again, I must be confused. The players developing in other leagues are going to get effected by the suck? I wasn't advocating rushing players.
I don't get this illogical reasoning. The team is going to suck. Try out college kids here and there, and save money. Ufa is bull**** maybe that's why no one answered your question, cause your question was irrelevant to this teams problems.
Save money? They're currently one of the lowest spending teams in the league, in both cap hit and cash.
