He was the AGM so he already should have known what they had. He thought they were a contender. That's the whole point. He missed the mark in a massive way. Tons of guys had trade value in the Summer of 17.
Who had value in the summer of 2017? Maybe Doughty. However, if he wanted to stay here, they weren't going to voluntarily get rid of him. They paid Quick, Brown, and Kopitar. They weren't going to change that by choosing to move Doughty. Without the Cups, maybe. He probably chooses to get the hell out without the Cups.
Coaches, executives and non-star players all have expiration dates. Dean Lombardi and Darryl Sutter's expiration dates came and they were correctly moved on from.
Plus, I am not sure about the culture stuff anymore. As someone else pointed out the culture was declining as much as the product on the ice. Stoll (and who knows who else) busted for coke in Vegas, not buying-out Richards despite being the worst player on the team, the Voynov debacle and embarrassing actions taken by the organization, the Richards border debacle and embarrassing actions taken by the organization, the Sutter lockerroom lockout, Brown being stripped of his C for no reason. Those are not examples of a strong culture.
It was time to move on, only mistake was who they hired.
What comes first, culture or talent? What's culture without talent? What's talent without culture?
I think we've gotten obsessed with this word culture. That's what losing and/or not winning does though. It makes everyone question everything all the time. Before the Kings won anything meaningful, we obsessed about Purcell being traded for nothing. How do you lose Matt Moulson for nothing? Hickey is the #4 pick? Hickey?!?!?!?!?! That all happened while the "culture" was still being formed. How do you question moves when the culture is so good?
Winning cures all. It is, without a doubt, the truest phrase you will ever hear. Win, and everything you did before that is either forgotten, or worth it. Easily justified or rationalized, because you won, which is the whole point of everything. Obviously the right things were done up to that point, otherwise you wouldn't have won. It only makes sense. Win, correct. Lose, wrong.
The Kings weren’t looking to tear down the roster or change what makes them successful. Goaltending, strong D, and power scheme to overrun the opposition. It is a successful formula for the playoffs as we all saw. Plus we just saw Colorado, a high octane offense get overrun by the Knights. A player like Mark Stone, who isn’t a fast skater by any means, was very effective.
In regards to Lucic, in his lone season with the Kings was he was a 20 goal scorer with 35 assists on the wing. Contrast that with the previous season where the Kings were rolling with Pearson (16 points), Clifford (15 points), Dwight King (26 points) on the left side. I don’t need to tell you that Lucic was a massive upgrade to those guys and filled a huge hole on the roster.
Price was steep in trading Jones, Colin Miller, and a first (Zboril) but Lombardi was in a tough spot with forwards. Stoll and Williams left the Kings, so their leadership was gone.
Jones had little value for the Kings, and outside of one year in, of course, Vegas, Miller has been nothing special. The 1st was the only piece that had value for the Kings. DL made the choice that he still wanted to win with Kopitar on a good contract. Lucic at 50% replaced Williams on the cap down to, I think, the penny.
The 14-15 season was horrible. Obviously Voynov. If he's there, there's probably no Sekera. Had they just made the playoffs with Sekera, there's no 2015 pick for DL to trade, since that's the pick that would've gone to Carolina. Kopitar, up to that point, had the worst season of his career. Even if you thought about trading him, because the dreaded 3rd contract was coming, you'd be selling low.
Then when the Kings were at least a decent team, in the standings anyway, in 15-16, at least up until Kopitar got his contract, that also didn't help. Had they just been a bad team in 15-16, maybe the deadline is different. But, they get Lucic in the summer, bring in Lecavalier, Versteeg, and try to win with some offense. The way they managed to win in the 2014 playoffs, because the team defense by then wasn't as solid as it used to be. They had to outscore Chicago, they didn't stop them. They had to come back many, many times against the Rangers, from multiple goal deficits.
The price was steeper than that, unless you think Futa wasn't being truthful. This organization is just in a totally different spot with Barzal right now and in the future.
Lucic was just not a fit for the Kings, they were never going to have the space to sign him and he wasn't a missing piece to put them over the top. Just like with the inexplicable decision to not buyout Richards it was Dean Lombardi showing his obsession with a certain type of player, and having that player on the roster even when it made zero sense.
It was like Al Davis with speedy WR's, he was obsessed with bringing as many in as possible even when it wasn't a fit because he was obsessed with them.
They were too close to 2014 and the just get in mentality to not take a shot in 15-16. Just get in, and you never know what the Kings will do. The problem with Barzal, or anyone else people cry about the Kings not being able to get that year, is that they didn't help their teams for 2 years. The Kings didn't have 2 years to waste at the time. Now they ended up wasting those 2 years, or at least 1 if you want to count just getting in one time, but that new Kopitar contract was looming on the horizon.
One season in 14-15 of barely missing the playoffs wasn't enough time to properly reset things. They needed more years of not winning, and more time before Kopitar was going to get paid for 2 Cups. It was all crunched together within 24 months though.
Bingo! The defining factors that has gotten teams to the final four are heart and culture. Yes, they have good players as well, but no one on Vegas or Montreal took a selfish penalty like Kadri and Scheifele did that ultimately doomed their teams' chances. Look at the Islanders- their leading scorer was injured for the season and they still totally out played two very good teams. You can tell they want it bad. Same with Vegas who came back and dominated a much faster team after being thrashed in game one of their series. DL understood this. The 2012 and 2014 teams wanted to win badly, and it showed on the ice. If you want to point to one thing that ended the Kings run, it was the Voynov suspension/imprisonment. After losing Scuderi, Mitchell and Regehr, he was being counted on to lay a much larger role. DL no doubt made mistakes, but his philosophy was the correct one. I'll never forget that Luc stabbed him in the back. That's how cultures are destroyed.
So is it culture, or talent? Lose Voynov, and that's where the Kings run ended? Why? The 14-15 team was made up of pretty much the entire team that won in 2014. What happened to wanting it badly? If the culture is there, you should survive that. The Kings survived in a playoff series without Mitchell and Regehr, while having to play Jeff Schultz, just a few months earlier. Where did that team go? Where did that strong culture go?
Granted, the NHL rarely gave the Kings a direct answer in regard to Voynov. Was he coming back, was he not coming back? 50 games? A year? Forever?
