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

[FSL KINGS]

Kempe is the best player on the team. Hit 40 goals, smooth skater, all downs. Even occasionally fills in on D & turns into Swedish N. Kronwall!!!! He lit up a dude listed at 6'7" 260 like it was nothing.

Deadline. King's are out of cap space & if they want to do something, need to move cap out. The question is, do they go for it? The King's are second in the division & going to get Doughty back soon & you're telling me Blake isn't going for it?

Now that we've established Blake's going for it, the only question is what does the deadline look like to Blake? What did he do this summer? Moore, Gavrikov seems like the likely targets to move for cap. Gavrikov wouldn't be until Doughty is back.

Off-season. Gavrikov 6, cap +5?, Provorov 2. Blake is going to have a lot of cap to work with. After Kuemper, Foegele, Jeannot, can't wait for next off-season.
Edit: & Edmundson

 

[AbsentMojo]

maybe 10 years ago. not him at 35. its not a mystery that the young D had made big jumps when he has gone down with injury x 2

Yes.. he's a stay home puck mover, tempo setter.. his 5x5 pts/60 for D last i checked was very pedestrian. He's got 2 major injuries under his belt as you pointed out, and he's 35. But thats not even my main points.. Its that he's not worth 11m for 36 and 37 yr season.. so to me its just a value play with the cap hit... you can do better overall for the team by backing off the cap ceiling and making trades and FA signings possible going fwd. And if you want to tank/rebuild say if Blake gets fired, thats a lot of salary off the books.

 

[Statto]

maybe 10 years ago. not him at 35. its not a mystery that the young D had made big jumps when he has gone down with injury x 2

That’s because when he’s fit he plays waaaaay too many minutes. At least now they know they don’t need to do that, whether they actually play him fewer minutes is a separate discussion. Having DD relatively fresh for the post season would be very beneficial.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

That’s because when he’s fit he plays waaaaay too many minutes. At least now they know they don’t need to do that, whether they actually play him fewer minutes is a separate discussion. Having DD relatively fresh for the post season would be very beneficial.

They seem to be wising up about Kopitar's minutes, playing him the least of his career.

Hopefully they can exercise the same restraint with an aging slowing coming off injury Doughty who is every bit the golden retriever Kevin is with respect to excitement to play

 

[KopitarGOAT420]

Watch the Kings TDL move be something like trading Moore and a 3rd round pick to Ottawa for Claude Giroux (50% retained) lol

 

[FSL KINGS]

39 min brief mention of LA talking to Philly

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

maybe 10 years ago. not him at 35. its not a mystery that the young D had made big jumps when he has gone down with injury x 2

That is definitely not backed up by the analytics. End of last regular season:

 

[unicornpig]

That is definitely not backed up by the analytics. End of last regular season:

View attachment 944211
View attachment 944212

fiala being on the top should show you all you need to know about analytics..... especially small sample.

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

fiala being on the top should show you all you need to know about analytics..... especially small sample.

Fiala is the best offensive player on the team when it comes to generating quality chances. How is that surprising? And it’s not a small sample size. That’s for the entire 2023-2024 season.

 

[BigKing]

maybe 10 years ago. not him at 35. its not a mystery that the young D had made big jumps when he has gone down with injury x 2

Young D making jumps with him out of the lineup has zero correlation to the claim of Doughty being the best player on the team. All it means is that the young defenseman have done well with the opportunity when given more minutes: not that they are better than Doughty.

You didn't mention it, but his contract has no bearing on a claim of him being the best player on the team either. Claim wasn't best value but rather best player.

 

[johnjm22]

fiala being on the top should show you all you need to know about analytics..... especially small sample.

Doughty was excellent last year. He's still a top quality defenseman.

 

[unicornpig]

Doughty was excellent last year. He's still a top quality defenseman.

nobody is saying hes not. but to say hes marginally much better than any other king on the team is one of the dumber things he's said.

 

[bland]

nobody is saying hes not. but to say hes marginally much better than any other king on the team is one of the dumber things he's said.

If i said "marginally" that would be stupid.

Because I said "by a considerable margin" which is true. Drew Doughty has been the best player on this team since the first day he arrived.

And I wouldn't toss around insults like that unless you want three pages of "I told you so's" on your posts alone.

Now go get your shine box.

 

[Schmooley]

And Doughty is also the best player on this team by a considerable margin.

Doughty has always been terribly underrated by his own fan base, no surprise that a tiny little win streak by a middle of the road squad has folks scrambling over themselves to move him.

Best player or not they are a middle of the road team with Doughty playing also. They have proven twice now they can win games without him and actually went further in the playoffs.

 

[AbsentMojo]

Best player or not they are a middle of the road team with Doughty playing also. They have proven twice now they can win games without him and actually went further in the playoffs.

100%. This started with me making the case for the value in moving DD for Marner.. and someone shifted the goalpost to argue DD being the best player on the team - boring.

 

[FSL KINGS]

What the King's really need is a large forward that can go to the dirty areas & gets under the opponents skin.

 

[Herby]

The under in Kings games is now 18-11 on the season, with 6 of the last 7 hitting the under.

The Kings or their opponent have scored 1 or less goals in 16 of the teams 29 games (55%).

The last time the Kings and their opponent both reached 3 goals in a game was November 2nd, a 4-3 SO loss to the Hawks.

Say what you want about Hiller, but he has this team all-in and committed to playing by far the most defensive oriented system in the NHL, in an era where offense is king, and is producing results, and is doing it without anything close to an elite goaltender and without his best defensive stopper on the blue line, it's a real testament to the complete buy-in to the defensive system by the players. If this team had just one or two more finishers, especially to help on the PP, they really could do something, because they sure have the defensive part down. I know some want wholesale changes if things don't work out, and I get it, a new manager will probably want his own guy behind the bench, but this team with one 40 goal or 90-100 point guy with Hiller's commitment to defense would be pretty interesting in a playoff series.

 

[Schmooley]

If this team had just one or two more finishers, especially to help on the PP, they really could do something, because they sure have the defensive part down. I know some want wholesale changes if things don't work out, and I get it, a new manager will probably want his own guy behind the bench, but this team with one 40 goal or 90-100 point guy with Hiller's commitment to defense would be pretty interesting in a playoff series.

Yea I was thinking the same. Who do you target and who are you willing to trade?
I think Moore Danault Kaliyev and Gavrikov could land them a scorer or two. They wouldnt miss a beat if Doughty slots in for Gavrikov, Turcotte slots in for Danault, and their trade target replaces Moore on the top line.
I think they should get another guy to play with Fiala and Byfield also to try and have a more offensive top six.
X-Kopitar-Kempe
Fiala-Byfield-x
Foegele-Turcotte-Laferriere
Jeannot-Helenius-Lewis
Greentree may be able to come in and fill a slot also when his season is over.

 

[Herby]

Yea I was thinking the same. Who do you target and who are you willing to trade?
I think Moore Danault Kaliyev and Gavrikov could land them a scorer or two. They wouldnt miss a beat if Doughty slots in for Gavrikov, Turcotte slots in for Danault, and their trade target replaces Moore on the top line.
I think they should get another guy to play with Fiala and Byfield also to try and have a more offensive top six.
X-Kopitar-Kempe
Fiala-Byfield-x
Foegele-Turcotte-Laferriere
Jeannot-Helenius-Lewis
Greentree may be able to come in and fill a slot also when his season is over.

The issue is, you really just can't acquire the type of player (and in reality it's probably two players from being true contender) that it would take to address this glaring issue for the Kings because nobody is trading high-end scoring unless they are so loaded with talent that they are against the cap, or it's an Eichel type situation where the marriage is damaged beyond repair. And in fairness to the Kings they did go out and get one of the few (albeit flawed) offensive players to hit the market in Fiala, at the cost of the best player the team has drafted since Drew Doughty. It almost always has to be done on draft night, and unfortunately the Kings are well past that point in the Rob Blake era, and why I think the gigantic ROI misses with the high picks between 2017 and 2020 continue to just really cripple this franchise way more than a lot of the fanbase wants to accept. They have so much to like throughout the rest of the roster, in the teams defensive system, in the teams defensive culture etc. But they just lack 1-2 of those real (as the kids say) DAWGS, that with their own natural ability are going to score 40+ goals and/or set-up their teammates for similar amounts and be real forces on the PP. And what really sucks, and I know many people hate to play the "what if game" , but the Kings were certainly in position to draft those types of players, and just made the wrong picks.

 

[Schmooley]

The issue is, you really just can't acquire the type of player (and in reality it's probably two players from being true contender) that it would take to address this glaring issue for the Kings because nobody is trading high-end scoring unless they are so loaded with talent that they are against the cap, or it's an Eichel type situation where the marriage is damaged beyond repair. And in fairness to the Kings they did go out and get one of the few (albeit flawed) offensive players to hit the market in Fiala, at the cost of the best player the team has drafted since Drew Doughty. It almost always has to be done on draft night, and unfortunately the Kings are well past that point in the Rob Blake era, and why I think the gigantic ROI misses with the high picks between 2017 and 2020 continue to just really cripple this franchise way more than a lot of the fanbase wants to accept. They have so much to like throughout the rest of the roster, in the teams defensive system, in the teams defensive culture etc. But they just lack 1-2 of those real (as the kids say) DAWGS, that with their own natural ability are going to score 40+ goals and/or set-up their teammates for similar amounts and be real forces on the PP. And what really sucks, and I know many people hate to play the "what if game" , but the Kings were certainly in position to draft those types of players, and just made the wrong picks.

I agree with all this. Though they may be able to pry some scorers from teams that want a shakeup. Guys like Forsberg, Kreider, Tkachuk and Hall and some may not cost all that much. Its not the best long term solution but if they are trying to win a round or two this year it may be necessary.

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

I agree with all this. Though they may be able to pry some scorers from teams that want a shakeup. Guys like Forsberg, Kreider, Tkachuk and Hall and some may not cost all that much. Its not the best long term solution but if they are trying to win a round or two this year it may be necessary.

Kreider would probably be a solid pickup, depending on cost, have to view him as short term though, same with Hall and even Forsberg, Tkachuk would be the only long term pickup and not sure he's worth the cost.