King'sPawn
Enjoy the chaos
- Jul 1, 2003
- 22,846
- 23,341
Sorry - you're right. I'll try to be more civil in future discussions.
I think the biggest difference is I don't think players like Kopitar MUST be traded to execute a rebuild. I feel that a team, particularly one that has had championships, should still have some core players from the past championship in place to give the youth someone to challenge after. Players like Kopitar and Doughty don't come every day. Just like players like Yzerman, Foote, Blake, Lemieux, etc. They are players who are consistently one of the best players on a championship team.
The youth should have these players alongside them at the very least to 1) help guide them to preparing and playing like a pro and champion, 2) insulate them during the growing pains (like Kopitar has for Byfield and 3) give the youth a target to aim for, and challenge them to take over ownership of a team.
I think players like Kopitar, Doughty, Brown, Quick, and even Carter shouldn't just be traded away while they have good value. Along with the above, I think that treating all players like mere assets, even after all they've brought to an organization and a city, sends a bad message. It creates a culture of indifference, and if the team sees a player as a mere asset, then players are more likely to see a team as a mere stepping stone until there's something better.
So, for me, players like the above should at the very LEAST stay long enough till they are supplanted by the next generation to take ownership. That's why I'm against trading against players all the time for mere value. They bring elements and experience to a team that just a mercenary/free agent won't.
As for why 2017 is better than 2015, that's also multi-factorial. I don't think a one-time miss of the playoffs after winning the cup is enough to justify a blowup. Sometimes players get humbled or are reminded of some things they might have taken for granted. I feel they should get a chance to redeem themselves, especially as some of the core players are one-year removed from winning the cup.
2017, to me, was a good year as it had been three seasons since. Furthermore, it gave some of the youth, like Toffoli and Pearson, opportunity to take the next step and start leading the team by elevation of their play over the vets. They just didn't do that.
So what are the options for an org?
1) trade away the vets, as you, K17, and others do. I understand why you want to take this path. I just don't think it's the right way. You get rid of key vets who helped win the cup, still have the young players who haven't taken ownership, and then bring in additional free agents to collect a paycheck and have no emotional investment into the team, while then asking your futures to get that emotional buy-in
2) trade away the youth who failed to take the next step (even though Toffoli and Pearson won the cup, they were more complementary pieces), keep the vets who helped win the cup in the past, and give the youth the aforementioned challenge and examples of the vets who DID do enough to lead the team to a cup, and try to get the new youth you bring in to take ownership in a way the previous youth did not. Moreover, I don't see a problem with having these vets if they are willing to buy in on a rebuild.
So for me, I think option two had better opportunity to have a rebuild, provided the vets were buying in on the rebuild. If they weren't, then yes, those vets should be traded.
To me, the right time to rebuild was in 2017, as there has been adequate time to let competitive personalities redeem themselves. The second-best time was to continue committing to it after 2021.
Had they stuck with the rebuild from 2021, I would have said this season MIGHT have been the right time to start discussing getting out of the rebuild. Anderson is showing leadership. Byfield's pulling the top line. Clarke would have played more. You might see some players who are ready to beat the expectations placed upon them. Not that I would have traded for Dubois, but maybe a trade for a Fiala-esque type of player this season would have been in the cards.
Vets with championship experience, who are willing to buy in on a rebuild while extoling the virtues of how much they love the home town are invaluable - more than the extra picks you would get out of trading them. Had Kopitar, Brown, etc not met the above criteria, I'd be a lot more on board with trading them.
I think ultimately, the biggest differences between us has been the timing and the path to executing a rebuild. I know those are two major differences, but I just don't think the gap was or is as wide as we argue about.
Edit: I also wanted to address something that was said in the argument and give additional context/clarification. Yes, Kopitar is my favorite player. For many reasons. Growing up as a kid, watching the Kings and playing hockey, I didn't ever aspire to be Gretzky. I always had fondness for Kurri. Consequently, I tried modeling my game to play like that of a two-way winger. So, I have an inherent bias towards defensive forwards. Kopitar played very similarly to how I tried to play - tried to be responsible on both sides of the ice, but lacked the meanness in my game.
It's also when I started having a better understanding of the draft, and I watched him compete in the World Championships for Slovenia - he was one of the first players I watched where I started really loving the idea of scouting and following prospects. Watching him and O'Sullivan at the prospect camp in 2006 is when I first tried plying my own attempt at scouting, beyond just watching a player and liking or disliking them. It's when a light turned on my head about realizing there's a growth process. Before, to me, as much as I loved hockey, it was much more superficial and instant-gratification oriented.
So, yes, there's a lot of personal investment I have in Kopitar beyond just thinking he's a great player and one of the greatest Kings. He was a big part of a personal journey I've gone through to exploring the game in a way I didn't realize I loved before. I am more than willing to admit he's my favorite player, but I think I have many good reasons beyond all he's done for the Kings to justify that bias.
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