Speculation: Another year of this Bluc **** (The 2024-25 season thread)

[Peter James Bond III]

Laferriere's agent was BRILLIANT to leverage him signing after his soph season, by having him stay up with the Kings and burning year 1 of his ELC, as part of the deal. I am sure the Kings would have never expected him to make the team the following year, have enough jam to play 81 games...and then follow that year with a seemingly 30+ goal breakout, ELC 3. He could honestly be headed for a 40+ goal year. He's confident, strong on pucks, has ability to find seems, score on in front of goal tips, high slot tips, has really improved his shot (he said in his April exit interview he would work hard on his shot in the Summer) and can really rifle pucks with accuracy within 25 feet of the goal.

No one was believing he would have this level of success as LW1 and probably move down...but he can play LW1 or can even score with Turcotte, Foegele....and his 7 5on5 goals is tops or among tops in the NHL.

Contracts these days are absurd, when it comes to one breakout season, or a player hitting 30+ goals. You almost know Blake is talking with Hiller to keep Laffy a bit bridled, off the PP...and less minutes, to keep him under 30 goals. Much akin to keeping Clarke away from bonuses last year. Half joking. I think if Laferriere tops 35+ goals, the Kings 'projections' for 25-26 cap model is looking a bit frantic and messing up what they were projecting...probably expected Laf to get 15-20 goals and get him bridged, around 3x3. Not going to happen.

Conversely, Turcotte's 3 x 775K is going to be one of the best contracts in the NHL. I wonder if Turcotte felt like he should take that as a 'guarantee' 3 years, in case a career ending concussion. I'm honestly surprised he took that and go for 2 yrs instead...betting on himself. I wonder if he had Laf's agent, may have done Turcotte better.

 

[FrozenKing18]

Friendly reminder that Rob Blake is going to be the longest tenured GM in Kings history.

Fantastic, that’s another banner up in the rafters.

 

[KopitarGOAT420]

This team desperately needs Byfield to find his scoring touch again.

Danault finally gets a goal last game but prior to that goal the Kings essentially had 0 goals from their middle 6 centers 11 games into the season. That's insane.

Byfield starting to score some goals will also open up his playmaking ability. Right now teams know he's always looking to make a pass so they can key on it.. If he starts finding the back of the net, all of the sudden you have to start defending differently against him and some of those passing lanes will start to open up again.

Really hope it's just a cold start / long scoring drought that ends up being an anomaly in his career. We can't be having these stretches of ~40 games (going back to last season) with 1 goal to show for it. QB just has way too much talent for that. You can see him visibly very frustrated on the ice too. The longer this goes on the harder it's going to be... Hope he can catch a break and get the monkey off his back ASAP.

I'll end with a little bold prediction: Byfield still ends up hitting 20 goals this year despite this ice cold start (I think he's going to start to catch fire once he pots a couple goals and gets his confidence going again)

 

[KINGS17]

Friendly reminder that Rob Blake is going to be the longest tenured GM in Kings history.

This organization is a f'ing joke post-Lombardi.

 

[BringTheReign]

Just my monthly reminder of the Kings roster if they'd done absolutely nothing except re-signing players we had, making draft pick-only trades (i.e. Yannetti-guided) or signing free agents for under $1M. Blake with a disconnected controller from October 2021 until today fields a better team than what we're left with.

Laferriere - Kopitar - Kempe
Vilardi - Byfield - Iafallo
Moore - Danault - Arvidsson
Thomas - Turcotte - Lee
*Kupari

Anderson - Faber
Roy - Clarke
Englund - Durzi
*Spence

Quick
Rittich
Copley
Petersen buried in the minors

IR: Kaliyev, Doughty
Two additional 1st round picks: Liam Ohgren (Wild), Oliver Bonk (Flyers via Blue Jackets)

 

[King'sPawn]

Just my monthly reminder of the Kings roster if they'd done absolutely nothing except re-signing players we had, making draft pick-only trades (i.e. Yannetti-guided) or signing free agents for under $1M. Blake with a disconnected controller from October 2021 until today fields a better team than what we're left with.

Laferriere - Kopitar - Kempe
Vilardi - Byfield - Iafallo
Moore - Danault - Arvidsson
Thomas - Turcotte - Lee
*Kupari

Anderson - Faber
Roy - Clarke
Englund - Durzi
*Spence

Quick
Rittich
Copley
Petersen buried in the minors

IR: Kaliyev, Doughty
Two additional 1st round picks: Liam Ohgren (Wild), Oliver Bonk (Flyers via Blue Jackets)

Only thing I'd say is a couple trades probably would have to be made as I don't think that's cap compliant - but at least the Kings would have had a better idea of their core.

 

[BringTheReign]

Only thing I'd say is a couple trades probably would have to be made as I don't think that's cap compliant - but at least the Kings would have had a better idea of their core.

My math shows $44.9M for the forward group, $32.4M for the back end, and $3.1M for the goaltending. That's $80.4M. Adding $3.9M for Petersen's buried hit gets us to $84.3M. I know that assumes they'd signed the same deals staying put, but yeah.

The following season we'd have to figure out Faber's extension and a new deal for Laferriere, but those are both manageable and good problems to have as opposed to what we have now.

 

[YP44]

any updates on Turcotte? Given his concussion history and his propensity to keep his head down and take big hits I am worried.
Guy looks good when healthy, but he has taken some big hits already this year.

 

[kingsholygrail]

any updates on Turcotte? Given his concussion history and his propensity to keep his head down and take big hits I am worried.
Guy looks good when healthy, but he has taken some big hits already this year.

No updates. It's the usual NHL. Upper body injury. Return status unknown.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

"He'll be fine"

Translation

They're searching for a concussion proof coffin

 

[AbsentMojo]

any updates on Turcotte? Given his concussion history and his propensity to keep his head down and take big hits I am worried.
Guy looks good when healthy, but he has taken some big hits already this year.

I think the first time we noticed he was the problem with the concussions was about 2 years ago. You'd think the org would recongize this and address it by now. In youth hockey there are drills they use at the peewee level to get them ready for hits - as kids notoriously look down all the time up til that time. Its like he never went through it.

 

[Reaper45]

It looked more shoulder/neck for Turcotte than head in my opinion unless I missed one of the angles.

 

[FSL KINGS]

Less than 20 games in Turcotte has taken 2-3 big hits on the boards. He can't keep taking these hits. It just isn't going to work.

Need a fill in if Turcotte can't figure it out.