Around the League '18-'19
- Thread starter Raccoon Jesus
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mbar
Registered User
All this tax talk is misleading. A good CPA (or chartered accountant in canada) can really narrow the differences between markets.
SettlementRichie10
Registered User
- May 6, 2012
- 10,239
- 8,524
I still think that 2010 Hawks team was the greatest selection of forward talent to win a championship in the cap era. Both Toews and Kane were on ELCs, and they were absolutely loaded with supporting talent 1-12.
KINGS17
Smartest in the Room
- Apr 6, 2006
- 32,583
- 11,776
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
This is a fine assessment but again that's not at all my point.
Every year, we get teams that get hyped as "the model" and "why can't the Kings do that?" only to watch those teams fall flat on their faces. Nashville. Winnipeg. Tampa Bay. And, ironically, the playoff team maybe most like the Kings in age and construction--Washington--was the winner this past year. GMs for these teams get hyped to the high heavens when I guarantee you they'd trade it all for one Cup, never mind 2 in 3 years. I know this is HF and so loading up with future assets is great, but at some point these GMs have to use those assets to get over the hump. Like, you look at these rosters and yeah god damn they are loaded, but it's foolish to talk about the Kings as a bunch of over the hill washups and these other teams as models when one has won twice and stayed competitive while the others have trended more towards the new-era Sharks than anything else. Right now, Stevie Y has all the chips in the world, but if he doesn't start using those chips to bully the table, he's not going to win, he's just slowly going to bleed his chip stack dry until the next shiny new toy comes along. That's why I'm skeptical of all the heaping praise. Not because he hasn't done a good job, I'm just saying it's an overrated job until something comes of it besides individual regular season awards. Shit, David Poile has been a GM for going on 21 years!
I get that we're hypercritical of the Kings as fans because we want them to succeed, but I can't get behind the notion that a lot of this board has that many other organizations have done it better given most of them are just floating around as various incarnations of the 2010 Kings, 2012 Blues, etc. but without the criticism. That's where the "grass is always greener" comment comes from. I mean really, praising Killorn? We have that guy and his name is Tanner Pearson and people can't wait to run him out of town.
Herby
How could Blake have known?
No one wants to run Pearson out of town, some people want him and/or Toffoli traded for a more impactful player because Pearson and TT who have been the two best players drafted and developed by the Kings in the last 9 years simply don’t cut it as second tier guys. Had this team not been run into the ground the previous 3-4 years and we had kept our picks and drafted and developed better players like Connor then no one would have a problem with them as 3rd line options.
If Killorn, Palat, Gourde were counted on to be Tampa’s best wingers like TT and TP were expected to be last year with the Kings they obviously wouldn’t be in a very good spot to contend.
The Kings had a great run, now going on 7 and 5 years ago. The Kings drafted 2 and maybe 3 HOF players in a three year span, had a nice 3 year run and fell apart due to incompetent management and drafting. 10-12 years ago the Kings were without question better built but the last 8 years, no chance. I mean it takes a lot to be this bad over a 4 year span when you have Doughty, Kopitar and Quick.
If Killorn, Palat, Gourde were counted on to be Tampa’s best wingers like TT and TP were expected to be last year with the Kings they obviously wouldn’t be in a very good spot to contend.
The Kings had a great run, now going on 7 and 5 years ago. The Kings drafted 2 and maybe 3 HOF players in a three year span, had a nice 3 year run and fell apart due to incompetent management and drafting. 10-12 years ago the Kings were without question better built but the last 8 years, no chance. I mean it takes a lot to be this bad over a 4 year span when you have Doughty, Kopitar and Quick.
Pearson and Toffoli are fine as second tier guys, you know how I know this, because Pearson (15 G, 25 A) and Toffoli (24G 23A) match up to Tampa's "second tier guys" Palat (11G 24A) yes as a 2nd line LW, (21G 29A) 2nd line RW. Killorn (15G 32A) and Kempe (16G 21A) match up, Gourde had an absolutely stellar rookie season, but if you don't think Tampa is reliant on him being a top point producer, I dunno, he was playing top six before the NYR trade and Miller stepped in...
Just curious, over the same time frame, how many players do you think Tampa drafted and developed?
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
If all the Kings have had is a "nice 3 year run," then the only teams better in the last 10 years are Pittsburgh and Chicago, and Tampa Bay has squat, and you have annihilated your entire post in one statement.
Herby
How could Blake have known?
Since 08? 09? The second cup win? No matter where you want to draw it Tampa has drafted significantly better than LA. I won't include players who haven't yet impacted in the NHL like Vilardi and Foote, but I believe Vilardi has a chance to be the Kings best pick since Drew, so that certainly helps as does the much needed regime change in LA.
I guess we can meet in the middle and say this decade though, for reference, here would be a Top 8
Kings
1. Tyler Toffoli (47)
2. Tanner Pearson (30)
3. Adrian Kempe (29)
4. Colin Miller (151)
5. Derek Forbort (15)
6. Mike Amadio (90)
7. Paul LaDue (181)
8. Andy Andreoff (80)
Lightning
1. Nikita Kucherov (58)
2. Brayden Point (79)
3. Andrei Vasilevsky (19)
4. Jonathan Druin (3)
5. Ondrej Palat (208)
6. Vladislav Nemestikov (27)
7. Radko Gudas (66)
8. Nikita Nesterov (148)
I don't know man, doesn't seem close to me.
It just seems to be that it's pretty tough to win 1 playoff game over a 4 year span when you have Kopitar, Doughty and Quick. The way that ends up happening is when you draft like we have for the better part of a decade.
Herby
How could Blake have known?
That is a true statement that only Pittsburgh and Chicago have been better. But most of the Kings success is due to events that happened in 2005 and 2008. If we are discussing current times then the grass is certainly greener in Tampa Bay.
But it didn't have to be that way, the Kings could have easily had a 6-8 year run had common sense moves been made (or terrible ones not made). I do think the Kings can win a SC in the next 2-3 years if a few things go right, and that is the benefit to having three players like 11, 8 and 32 it gives you a large margin for error. But I just don't understand how we can argue that the Kings haven't been a disaster since June 2014 and Tampa is positioned to contend for the next few years. Success in this league comes down to how well you draft, and they have drafted very well and the Kings have drafted very poorly.
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
But now you're talking about only drafting and using a window in which Tampa wasn't competitive and we were winning Cups to show off their drafting. I don't think anyone disagrees that it would be nice to have, say, Barzal right now, but it's easy to draft Drouin when you're terrible (like Doughty), and it's easy to keep picks like Point and Namestnikov when you're not competing for a Cup. Maybe Yzerman has a long view and WONT trade any futures to take a real shot at a Cup, but I think that's started to change with the McDonagh trade, no?
We traded many of those picks into players that won now. Saying that only drafting Kopitar/Doughty was the only success we had in drafting is a view lacking context at best. It'll be more fair for BOTH of us to make this comparison in a few years when TB is well into their window and we can compare their 2015-2020 to like our 2010-2015 or something, but going back to the original point, it's easy to be easy/not critical of Tampa because everything is coming up roses right now and it's easy to be pessimistic about us because some moves haven't worked. I guess in the end all I'm saying is I like what Steve Yzerman has done (and the on-ice product is fun as hell to watch) but he's far from flawless and I'm not a big fan of your raking of DL here when he actually accomplished twice what SY hopes to do because it's easy to critique with hindsight (i agree with you that it was his time to go though).
The Tikkanen
Pest
I think we all want Pearson to play better. When you don't play well in this era of professional sports fans want you gone. To simply say Pearson was fine last season or hope he gets better is fine as is saying he was awful, he's far too inconsistent, floating through long stretches of the season without scoring goals and lacks the dynamic skill set to score goals. If he scored goals as consistently as he chewed on his mouth guard nobody would want him gone. The guy had 2 goals and 3 assists on the PP ALL SEASON LONG! From the season before his goals were down, points were down, even strength goals were down, power play goals were down, short handed goals were down, game winning goals were down, shots were down, shooting percentage was down, total shot attempts were down, time on ice was down by 21 seconds, hits were down and his giveaways went from 20 to 39. Tanner Pearson SUCKED last season. He deserves criticism.
johnjm22
Pseudo Intellectual
- Aug 2, 2005
- 21,488
- 18,954
Tampa Bay must have a really awesome Director of Amateur Scouting. I wonder who he is. We should try and get him.
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
5 points is only 3 less than his previous 8, and that's with 50 less minutes on the powerplay, about 40 seconds less per game.
I don't think it's fair to say he "sucked" last season, though he obviously left us wanting more. But if it's true that he "sucked," then this conversation comparing him to TB players is even funnier, because a lot of the folks mentioned in this thread as carrying the secondary mail for Tampa--Palat, Killorn, so on--scored in the same neighborhood (or less!) on a team that scored nearly 300 goals. Again, grass is always greener. I get sick of repeating it, but the blind comparisons keep happening.
Here's the problem with this...and RJ pointed it out, during this time,
LA won two cups, contended for a 3rd, traded picks for NOW players, regardless of how that worked out,
Tampa, until this year, HELD on to their picks trying to build into what they have now, which is why I keep saying their window is 1-2-3 years long, with the contracts they gave out...
Would LA want to be in Tampa's position NOW....sure....but I guarantee you Tampa would want to be in LA's position as well, given the 2 cup wins etc.
lumbergh
It was an idea. I didn't say it was a good idea.
I think fans generally have too high an expectation for a middling player like Pearson. He is a very good third line player on a team that hasn’t had enough winger depth. 40 points, give or take 5, is about all you’re going to get.
40 points nowadays is top 6 production. 45 points this year puts you with guys like James Neal, Alex Steen, Mik Backlund, Kevin Hayes, Thomas Hertl, Wayne Simmonds, etc. I think that's a reasonable expectation for Pearson, he's a #5 or #6 forward on a good team with solid utility, and can easily shift between any of the top 3 lines.
I certainly don't think he was terrible. His last 3 seasons were 36, 44, and 40 points, so his production was right where it usually is. His goals were down and his assists were up, which could easily be explained by the absence of Carter for long stretches, who he sees a lot of time with. I view it more as Pearson was put with a rookie (Kempe) and still managed to put up 40 points and a +11, most of which were at ES. He could have been better, sure, but his numbers weren't that far off, especially considering the loss of a key center. Neither he nor Toffoli were at their best, unsurprising as they had to adjust to a player who is still adjusting.
lexlavender
Registered User
- Jun 9, 2013
- 1,340
- 1,111
KopitarFAN
Reno Sucks!
Axl Rhoadz
Binky distributor
- Apr 5, 2011
- 5,343
- 3,960
He's also had the luxury of playing with a #1 center, yet on a 2nd line. SO, is he really a 20/20 player on a 2nd line?
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
He put up 40 points with mostly a rookie center in Kempe and 44 with Carter. Is it really that absurd?
He's not a 'raw-talent' top-sixer and I think that's where people make the mistake that all top-sixers are blue chip dangling studs. He's a tenacious puck hound with good offensive IQ and tools that's supportive of his snipers. He's not going to create on his own often or be the go-to guy on a line, make no mistake, but he's a great support player.
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