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Speculation: 2019-20 News/Rumors,Roster thread Post Deadline

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Supposedly the Ducks had Erik Karlsson high on their list. I think there was an interview with Mark Yannetti where he mentioned the Kings had Karlsson ranked highly as well, but the staff all got hard when they interviewed Teubert. They fell in love with the big, dumb jock and also drafted for need with visions of Teubert and Hickey paired together.
 
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Herby said:
Two parts to the Richards era in LA. One as a great 2nd line center and key player on a cup winning team and one as he really struggled badly to keep up with the pace of play. Most of the discussion and debates about the player happened on this board after the 2013 playoffs, which was the last time the first era MR ever appeared. I have the opinion that the original trade was a winner for the Kings, the only roster mistake the Kings made was not using the compliance buyout, and even that was minimized by the termination settlement agreement.

I do kind of think people on this board sometimes downgrade how great and impactful the Big 3 were in their primes when they say "We never would have won a cup without 'Player A' or 'Coach B'. " I think it kind of sells them short a little
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I get your point but it is also more that those three are a given but they don't win the Cup without huge efforts from other players. Dustin Brown was an absolute force in 2012 and then you have Gaborik and Williams in '14. With Richards, it is harder to quantify since there is a "winner's mystique" about him that you either buy in to or don't. When you fall in the latter camp, it is easier to dismiss him because it then becomes an argument based on counting stats. Now, Lombardi didn't trade for him expecting a PPG player so a big part of the acquiring him was the intangibles: something this team needed from a non-ancillary player. Greene, Williams, Mitchell...there was leadership on this team but they were lacking in it when it came to marquee name types: acquiring him let 11/23/8/3 etc...know that expectations were high and failure was not an option. This was driven home with the TM firing, Brown trade rumors and finally the trade of Johnson. The latter was a big deal since he was DL's guy, considered a big part of the future and had signed a team friendly contract while acting as his own agent.

Anyways, I agree with your assessment of MR. My biggest issue with him was DL not buying him out. His unceremonious exit and salary cap impact while the team was still competitive makes people dislike him and downplay his impact: especially when coupled with how much of a fan favorite Simmonds was and still is. Hell, I love Wayne Simmonds. He is the prototypical BigKing type of player. I still do the trade 10/10 times.
 
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The Tikkanen said:
I don't think you can discount the importance of a solid 2 way center or a stay at home dman in Sutter's system. Richard is the guy you want in your foxhole type, never skated away from a scrum-he basically was a Sutter Brother.
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While watching replays of 2012 games, Willie Mitchell really sticks out.
 
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The thing about Mike Richards and his winner's mystique whether real or imagined, it didn't really matter unless his teammates believed it. And by all accounts, they bought into it. The foxhole analogy mentioned in another post is appropriate in this case. For a bunch of young guys who had never been past the first round of the playoffs to add a player who had won championships at every lower level (and the Olympics) and captained the Flyers to the SCF while also erasing a 0-3 series deficit was huge. While he and Carter didn't beat the Hawks, their experience and leadership qualities must've been comforting for Brown and Kopi. Oh and they provided ingredients that the Kings needed to be complete, so there's that. I also have to believe that besides the fact that most of the roster were champions in 2014, having 2 guys in the lineup who actually came back from 0-3 was helpful in keeping the boys going. Watch some footage of the glory years and you'll see both Richards and Carter stick tapping all the guys going onto the ice in the tunnel. It's a small detail, but something I noticed.
 
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cyclones22 said:


Oh and do yourself a favor re-watch this for your viewing pleasure. I was just thinking about this segment the other day and I remember watching this live and wanting to punch Hayward in the face during it. Jim Fox with the last laugh.
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:laugh: One of my all time favorites. Pulls out his freakin ring what a shmuck. They have to redo this and ask the same damn question and let that idiot pull out his ring again just so we can win two more cups. LMAO.
 
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Insane idea on the presumption that we still want another crack at a Cup with Kopitar and Doughty: try and sign Pietrangelo out of St. Louis given their and many other contenders' cap crunch.
 
ru4reals said:
LOL what the heck did Fox say? Oh my goodness that is hilarious.
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i-tawt-i-taw-a-puddy-cat.jpg
 
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Jim Fox was a puss of a player. Murray probably would have taken him in a fight. Guy got only 8 PIMs twice in two 70+ game seasons in the early 80s. My goodness. I forget the brawl, but there is a clip floating around out there where he keeps his gloves on the entire time throughout the whole thing. Like, at least drop your gloves when you are wrestling around and trying to pull guys off of others.

As for that altercation, Gleason was a real stud. I went down a Gleason wormhole of Gleason fights on YT over the weekend. He became a pretty good fighter which was pretty unexpected. Thought we were getting an offensive defenseman in the Smolinski trade and he turned in to a real hard-nosed player.
 
KINGS17 said:
Under rated offense was a characteristic Mitchell possessed to go along with his solid play in his own zone.
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What the Kings lost with Richards and Mitchell's departures was accountability.

You couldn't get a toe in Quick's crease without getting the business from Mitchell, from the first shift in camp to the Cup getting hoisted - a constant standard of conduct.

Richards was the last player every teammate saw before stepping on the ice. No, it wasn't an intimidating glare, it was a constant standard of play, whether you want to call it encouraged or demanded, likely somewhere inbetween, that allowed a bunch of individuals to coalesce into a team. If it could be quantified it would have been duplicated by now. He had an innate ability to win, to get others to raise their play.

That is fully evident, to those who understand the game, in Game 1 of the Vancouver series. They not only took home ice, they stepped on Vancouver's throat and clearly and definitively put themselves in charge of the series. That doesn't happen by accident, it happens by picking the right spots to engage the right players and put them on tilt. Richards not only played well, he put both Burrows and Kesler on their heels for the duration. Everybody played well, Mike Richards showed them how to win.

Its no coincidence that the Kings "core" was 10-1 in playoff series with Mike Richards and 0-4 without him. Of course it wasn't just him. Winning is a skill in and of itself, and it isn't learned by osmosis. THAT was Lombardi's biggest mistake. He couldn't replace what he lost in Richards and Mitchell, the rest of the team didn't have that skill of accountability, and he spent himself into a corner assuming that the "core" had learned what it took to win. They didn't and haven't since.

Its comical to read some of the drivel here by people who cannot help but underline their inability to understand the non-statistical parts of the game.
 
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Ziggy Stardust said:
Fox rightly called out Bryan Murray when they sent out Chara to beat up on Tim Gleason of all people. He also pulled this crap off when he was with the Ducks. That’s what Murray’s teams were known for.
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I have always wondered about that moment. It was right after the game. Clearly Murray didn't have time to hear the oppositions TV broadcast. Booths are typically very close to each other - did a member of the Ottawa broadcast team rat Fox out?

I believe that this was in no way their first interaction, and Fox may have said something directly to Murray in the tunnel to generate that spit bath of a response.
 
Raccoon Jesus said:
Hahah holy shit, that's just so crazy it might work. Shades of Pronger-Neidermeyer.
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Offer him a huge 7 year deal, by the time ELCs starts to come up Carter & Brown will be gone, Quick only has one year left, the worst of the Phaneuf buyout is over. Hmmmmm......

Doughty
Pietrangelo
Walker (or Roy)

down the right side. Crazy to think about.
 
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