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

[Sparky206]

Is he young? He's almost 24 and has parts of 4 years of nhl experience. He's right in the middle of his prime.

I'm pretty sure we know what we are getting with Kempe and that's okay with me. Not every player has to be a home run. Sometimes you have to string together a couple of hits to score a run.

Well in 3 years he'll be 26, I wouldn't be calling him old then

 

[Steve Zissou]

JARET ANDERSON-DOLAN NAVIGATED, DEVELOPED & THRIVED DURING ROOKIE SEASON

Jaret Anderson-Dolan navigated, developed & thrived during rookie season - LA Kings Insider

The 20-year-old led all Reign skaters with 20 assists, led a large group of first-year skaters in Ontario with 28 points and earned a January recall to the NHL, where he played a small sample of games with the Kings for the second consecutive season. Not too shabby for a player navigating the waters of his first campaign as a professional.

Anderson-Dolan got off to a hot start, with seven points from his first eight games played, before he leveled off a bit with a scoring drought during the month of November. There were perhaps some outside expectations of offensive dominance out of the gate, but Reign Head Coach Mike Stothers was cautious to place those expectations himself on a young player.

 

[KingsFan7824]

Every forward gets a little snake bit from time to time and goes through scoring droughts. The consistency part comes in where the player gradually stops going to the areas, or doing the things which produce points and goals. What is maddening is when Doughty stops shooting wrist shots from the point, and instead winds up for the slap shot everyone knows will be blocked. Then there is Kopitar driving the net and producing points almost at will reverting to skating laps around the boards in the offensive zone, or having his ass glued to the wall on the power play.

Ah, but at least they're consistent at eventually doing this.

Anyone think we could pry Pietrangelo out of St. Louis? Seriously. If we're set on competing again with Kopitar and Doughty, why not? Whichever of top forwards that pan out will be on ELCs for at least 3 more seasons (Vilardi excluded), and I'm willing to bet Blake will be able to lock up guys like Walker and Roy on the cheap.

To be clear, I'd say there's about a 75% chance this is a terrible idea, and would much rather stay the course. However, the 25% possibility of it working out is intriguing. Pietrangelo strikes me as the type of player who will be effective long-term a la Giordano or Chara.

Hall would be intriguing too. Probably the right kind of winger for Kopitar. Damn free agency.

 

[Ollie Weeks]

Hall and Pietrangelo could not be more different. Both are probably bad ideas, but Hall would be a disaster.

 

[Bandit]

Hall and Pietrangelo could not be more different. Both are probably bad ideas, but Hall would be a disaster.

We’d win the draft lottery though.

 

[BringTheReign]

We’d win the draft lottery though.

This is the only reason to sign Taylor Hall for the money he'll be asking for. Now, if you could sign him for less then 5 years or for under $8M/year, you do it, but I have a feeling he's going to start his bidding near where Marner and Panarin are.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

If you want Kopitar to stop shooting, getting Hall is exactly how you do it.

He's Kovalchuk. He's a lone wolf. Put him with talent or without talent, it doesn't matter. He's just flying down the wing and unloading a shot, maybe a toe drag in there somewhere. May as well sign him for 10m and put him on the fourth line and the PP.

I've never seen such a brainless player get such epic results. But there's also a reason three teams looking to him for results go nowhere.

Hall is exactly the kind of player who sucks once they turn 30. Physical talents start waning, injuries pile up, game predicated on speed, no IQ on either side of the redline.

 

[DoktorJeep]

I don’t mind some action when it comes to UFAs, but management should be spending there time hunting for good values. No way should the kings get in bidding wars for guys like Hall and Petro.

 

[Steve Zissou]

I don’t mind some action when it comes to UFAs, but management should be spending there time hunting for good values. No way should the kings get in bidding wars for guys like Hall and Petro.

 

[KingsFan7824]

If you want Kopitar to stop shooting, getting Hall is exactly how you do it.

He's Kovalchuk. He's a lone wolf. Put him with talent or without talent, it doesn't matter. He's just flying down the wing and unloading a shot, maybe a toe drag in there somewhere. May as well sign him for 10m and put him on the fourth line and the PP.

I've never seen such a brainless player get such epic results. But there's also a reason three teams looking to him for results go nowhere.

Hall is exactly the kind of player who sucks once they turn 30. Physical talents start waning, injuries pile up, game predicated on speed, no IQ on either side of the redline.

He might be a lone wolf, but he's more of a north/south wolf, not the east/west/south/west/north/south/north/east wolf Kovalchuk was. One reason Gaborik worked so well, for a short time. He didn't mess around. Kopitar knew where he would be, but he did defer to Gaborik because he had talent. We thought that would be when Kopitar would explode offensively, but he only managed to do that with 9 goal Iafallo by his side. And a new coach.

 

[cyclones22]

Interesting article in The Athletic ranking the 25 most dominant hockey teams over the last 50 years. In an aggregate type ranking, the 2012 Champs came in 19th overall. Montreal 1977, Edmonton 1984, Boston 1972, Islanders 1982, Montreal 1978 are the top 5 FWIW:

"19. Los Angeles Kings, 2011-12

Record: 40-27-15, 95 points (82 games). Won Stanley Cup.
The Kings won two Stanley Cup titles in a three-year span (also 2013-14) using virtually the same formula – an up-and-down regular season followed by an extraordinary playoff. Another similarity: In each run, they added a key piece of the Stanley Cup puzzle via a trade with the Blue Jackets at the trade deadline: Jeff Carter in 2012, Marian Gaborik in 2014. Nobody had an answer for the 2011-12 team once the playoffs began, with the Kings opening up 3-0 leads in all four series and losing just four games in total. That year, Darryl Sutter became the fifth coach in NHL history to take over a team midseason and go on to win the Stanley Cup."

That's a pretty good ranking all things considered. Now the really interesting part is that on individual rankings, Scott Burnside had that team ranked 6th overall! When he was writing for ESPN, I kinda viewed him as a Kings detractor at first during our Golden Age. Here's a snippet of his commentary:

"But when we talk dominance aren’t we talking about not just the specific circumstances of that specific season – like the Red Wings in 1997-98 overcoming the horrific accident in the wake of the ’97 Cup win to win a second straight Cup – but also the broader landscape of the league itself?
Since the 2004-05 lockout, we have seen nine different Stanley Cup winners, which means we have to consider “dominance” through a different prism. Only Los Angeles, Chicago and Pittsburgh have won more than one championship during this period.
So, fair to say it’s much harder to claim dominance in the cap era, which is why I would move the 2012 Kings team much further up the list from their current 19th ranking. I would certainly have them in the top 10 most dominant teams and closer to top five, as you can see from my list.
To come out of the eighth seed and absolutely steamroll opponents en route to a Stanley Cup – running up a 3-0 series lead in four straight rounds – is almost unthinkable in any era but even more so in the cap era."

Scott Burnside's most dominant teams

RANK	TEAM	SEASON	POSTSEASON RESULT
1	Montreal Canadiens	1976-77	Won Stanley Cup
2	Edmonton Oilers	1983-84	Won Stanley Cup
3	Montreal Canadiens	1977-78	Won Stanley Cup
4	Boston Bruins	1971-72	Won Stanley Cup
5	New York Islanders	1981-82	Won Stanley Cup
6	Los Angeles Kings	2011-12	Won Stanley Cup
7	Detroit Red Wings	2001-02	Won Stanley Cup
8	Edmonton Oilers	1987-88	Won Stanley Cup
9	Montreal Canadiens	1975-76	Won Stanley Cup
10	Boston Bruins	2010-11	Won Stanley Cup
11	Colorado Avalanche	2000-01	Won Stanley Cup
12	Calgary Flames	1988-89	Won Stanley Cup
13	Edmonton Oilers	1984-85	Won Stanley Cup
14	Pittsburgh Penguins	1991-92	Won Stanley Cup
15	Philadelphia Flyers	1973-74	Won Stanley Cup
16	New York Rangers	1993-94	Won Stanley Cup
17	Chicago Blackhawks	2012-13	Won Stanley Cup
18	Pittsburgh Penguins	2016-17	Won Stanley Cup
19	New York Islanders	1980-81	Won Stanley Cup
20	Detroit Red Wings	1997-98	Won Stanley Cup
21	Washington Capitals	2017-18	Won Stanley Cup
22	Philadelphia Flyers	1974-75	Won Stanley Cup
23	Chicago Blackhawks	2009-10	Won Stanley Cup
24	Carolina Hurricanes	2005-06	Won Stanley Cup
25	Pittsburgh Penguins	1992-93	Lost in second round

[TBODY] [/TBODY]
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Stimpythecat]

 

[ru4reals]

LOL "R" Trevor Lewis.

 

[Herby]

Maybe I am in the minority, but I think the 2014 team was better than the 2012 team.

2014

Brown-Kopitar-Gaborik
Pearson-Carter-Toffoli
King- Stoll- Williams
Clifford-Richards-Lewis

Muzzin-Doughty
Mitchell-Voynov
Martinez - Regehr/Greene/Schultz

Quick


2012

Brown- Kopitar- Williams
Penner-Richards-Carter
King- Stoll- Lewis
Nolan-Fraser-Richardson

Scuderi-Doughty
Mitchell-Voynov
Martinez-Greene

Quick


More skill throughout the 2014 lineup. 2012 team had a special run, but that gauntlet they went through in 2014 was as tough as any team in recent memory.

 

[Sparky206]

Ive been watching a lot of the 2012 game replays, that team just had absolutely solid defense combined with a lot of players who were able to just get it done when it needed to be. They also hit a hell of a lot harder and more often than the current team, Dustin Brown was genuinely feared because he was putting on a big hit every period and sending one guy back to the locker room most games. They still couldn't score to save their lives in 2012, but they just put a lot of pucks on net and dominated possession until the other teams cracked and with the defense one goal was all that was needed to at the very least make it seem like a come back was insurmountable to the opposition.

 

[KingsFan7824]

6th might be a bit high. You look at the other 24 teams on Burnside's list, Washington in 17-18 finished 6th overall, Boston in 10-11 finished 7th overall, and Pittsburgh in 91-92 finished equivalent to about 8th overall in a 31 team league, and everyone else was 1st, 2nd, 3rd overall. The 11-12 Kings were 13th. I get the whole cap era thing, and 2014 helps to make 2012 not a one hit wonder that just got stupidly hot at the exact right time. That's what makes the 2012 run so crazy though. Very few would've predicted up 3-0 in every series. Mostly because that's never happened before or since, but also because the Kings weren't dominant on the scoreboard during the first 82 games of the season.

 

[cyclones22]

The title of the story is most dominant, not best. Once the Kings went up 2-0 on the Blues in Round 2, I think a lot of folks around the league knew the writing on the wall that the Kings were not going to be stopped. Hell, once the Kings got a lead in a game during the Playoffs, the game was basically over. They smothered teams to death when playing with the lead. Game 5 vs the Coyotes was the only out of character game, really. A seesaw battle. Remember, this team had a ridiculous streak over a couple of seasons of not losing a game in regulation when leading after 2 periods.

 

[Lt Dan]

Maybe I am in the minority, but I think the 2014 team was better than the 2012 team.

2014

Brown-Kopitar-Gaborik
Pearson-Carter-Toffoli
King- Stoll- Williams
Clifford-Richards-Lewis

Muzzin-Doughty
Mitchell-Voynov
Martinez - Regehr/Greene/Schultz

Quick


2012

Brown- Kopitar- Williams
Penner-Richards-Carter
King- Stoll- Lewis
Nolan-Fraser-Richardson

Scuderi-Doughty
Mitchell-Voynov
Martinez-Greene

Quick


More skill throughout the 2014 lineup. 2012 team had a special run, but that gauntlet they went through in 2014 was as tough as any team in recent memory.

You are not in the minority

Plus I think that they also faced stiffer competition. Except the Rangers

 

[KingsFan7824]

The title of the story is most dominant, not best. Once the Kings went up 2-0 on the Blues in Round 2, I think a lot of folks around the league knew the writing on the wall that the Kings were not going to be stopped. Hell, once the Kings got a lead in a game during the Playoffs, the game was basically over. They smothered teams to death when playing with the lead. Game 5 vs the Coyotes was the only out of character game, really. A seesaw battle. Remember, this team had a ridiculous streak over a couple of seasons of not losing a game in regulation when leading after 2 periods.

Yeah, but if we're talking dominant teams, I feel like it should be from start to finish. 6th is pretty high for a team that finished the regular season 13th overall, and that's with a great record after the trade deadline. 3 points from 11th, but still, 11th. It was a ridiculously dominant playoff run, but I think 19th is better than 6th, because of the total picture.

The title also isn't the most dominant Cup winners either, just teams. Of the 3 lists in the article, one had 3 out of 25 not winning the Cup, another had 1 out of 25 not winning, one had 8 of 25. I would tend toward the 3rd list if I was making one, because you can get a hot goalie for 2 weeks that wrecks your team. There is something to be said about finishing the deal, but there are 6 months worth of games that get played before that too.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Yeah it's strange though. I would say on paper the 2014 team was much better. It looked like the friggin 2010 allstar team. and they basically faced the murderer's row of 'best western conference teams of the decade' in a deathmatch tourney. Would have been interesting to see how they'd be viewed if they got the Pens or Bruins in the final instead of the Rangers but people tend to forget the Rangers as kind of Sharks East too.

But for a team that was playing beyond what they were, it's hard to argue against 2012. Other than Doughty and Kopitar and a little bit of Quick, none of those guys touched that level of play again, Dwight King being the franchise WCF goals record holder in a gretzky franchise is pretty symbolic of everyone squeezing every bit of juice out of it. The 2014 Kings defied the odds, the 2012 Kings shattered their expectations.

 

[DoktorJeep]

2014 was my top Kings team of all time. The combination of skill, timely scoring, toughness, grit, defense and goal tending throughout the lineup was something I never thought I would see in my life from this franchise.

 

[johnjm22]

The 2014 team was more talented, but the 2012 team played better.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Speaking of 2012...

 

[BigKing]

It's tough because you obviously have a lot of the same players on each team but 2012 Brown, Richards and Quick were much better than the 2014 versions. I kind of like 2012 Voynov and Greene more too. But 2014 Gaborik was insane plus 2014 Williams was much better than 2012 Williams along with the Pearson and Toffoli injection.

I do think the 2014 team is better when you look at the lineup but 2012 Quick was in another stratosphere. The '14 team had a much tougher level of opponent but I wonder how the 2012 team would have fared against that gauntlet with the way Quick was dialed in and how devestating the fore check was.

I do think 2014 was more impressive due to the quality of competition, but they also had to go to seven games in the first three rounds and then win three OT/2OT games in the SCF. Like, 2012 Quick isn't allowing 20 goals or whatever in the first two games of the SJ series. Does that team still win against the 2014 competition and do they do it in less games? It's tough...I've always leaned towards the '14 team due to the resiliency and who they had to beat (beating Chicago obviously gives them a huge boost) but the 2012 team absolutely murdered everyone and, in a way, makes the quality of competition look poorer because they didn't have to struggle. It also doesn't help that the best team they beat was missing its best/2nd best player for the first three games of the series. Then you've got King knocking out Pieterangelo for a game and a a half. On the flip side, the '14 Kings got the benefit of the Vlasic injury but had to actually ice Jeff f***ing Schultz and still won the whole thing so that speaks to the depth of that team.

 

[kingsholygrail]

I think 2012 was definitely more dominant than 2014. 2014 had the more dramatic run though given how often they were on the ropes and the list of opponents. Even the Rangers with the LA vs NY atmosphere.