Kings Article: Doughty Throws Down Gauntlet to LA Kings Management. But Was He Right?

[FrozenRoyalty]

The headline says it all. Agree? Disagree? Your comments and thoughts are welcome and encouraged!

Doughty Throws Down Gauntlet to LA Kings Management. But Was He Right?

Click to read more...

 

[Reclamation Project]

Agree. Anything to wake this organization from their 7+ year coma.

 

[tomd]

Feels like the article missed the entire contradiction of what the Kings are trying to do. Rebuilds are generally not done while keeping the most expensive 4-5 players on the team who are in their prime or slightly past it. Has any team ever tried to do a rebuild in this fashion and been successful?

By keep 8 and 11 on the roster, Blake was basically shooting for a 3 year rebuild. Why else would he keep them unless the plan was for them to be part of the next Cup run? So he's now nearing the end of year 3. As such, the team is either ready to compete in the playoffs or the 8/11/rebuild has failed. Which is it?

If the rebuild was never intended to be finished in 3 years then Blake screwed up royally by not dealing all or most of the Quick/Doughty/Kopitar/Brown quartet. The locker room now runs a real risk of turning toxic which is the last place you'd want to bring your prized prospects into. And it's totally Blake's fault.

Doughty has thrown down the gauntlet and rightly so.

 

[deaderhead28]

Drew was absolutely right and Blake already said in a conference call he is doing that this up coming season.So nothing Doughty said was new,but it had to be said as a leader on this team.

 

[FrozenRoyalty]

Feels like the article missed the entire contradiction of what the Kings are trying to do. Rebuilds are generally not done while keeping the most expensive 4-5 players on the team who are in their prime or slightly past it. Has any team ever tried to do a rebuild in this fashion and been successful?

By keep 8 and 11 on the roster, Blake was basically shooting for a 3 year rebuild. Why else would he keep them unless the plan was for them to be part of the next Cup run? So he's now nearing the end of year 3. As such, the team is either ready to compete in the playoffs or the 8/11/rebuild has failed. Which is it?

If the rebuild was never intended to be finished in 3 years then Blake screwed up royally by not dealing all or most of the Quick/Doughty/Kopitar/Brown quartet. The locker room now runs a real risk of turning toxic which is the last place you'd want to bring your prized prospects into. And it's totally Blake's fault.

Doughty has thrown down the gauntlet and rightly so.

The article didn't miss that. Those players might not be here by that time. Didn't need to be said.

 

[kilowatt]

Quick is obviously on the decline, but are we suggesting that in order to compete next year, we should trade our three best players? The issue isn't that we still have Kopitar, Doughty, Brown, and Quick, it's that no one has stepped up and played better than any of those guys. In fact, the only guy in the past five years to have better stretches of games is Carter.

So we can trade prospects (hopefully not Turcotte or Byfield), sign free agents, or twiddle our thumbs. I don't f***ing know, but this team is ass.

 

[LAKings88]

Play Turcotte, Byfield, Kaliyev, and Thomas.

So tired of the stale fillers.

 

[tomd]

The article didn't miss that. Those players might not be here by that time. Didn't need to be said.

Let me respectfully disagree.

As far as I can tell (from nearly 50 years of following hockey) what Blake is trying to do is unique. Normally when a team decides to make changes AND keeps its top 5 veteran players around (in this case Doughty, Kopitar, Brown, Quick, and until recently Carter) the effort is called a "retool". It involves trading support players for other support players in order to change the chemistry and composition of the roster. The goal is to improve the roster not make it worse and the "retool" usually can be accomplished in 1-2 years so that the core can continue to compete.

What Blake has tried to do, however, is a rebuild while at the same time keeping his 5 most expensive and veteran players. Every trade of supporting players has been for prospect and draft picks. And yet the most expensive players remain. If this is a proper rebuild then (a) why are they still here? and (b) what should they expect from management in terms of the team's ability to compete for the remainder of their contracts? Doughty is the only one with the courage (or interest) in asking those questions.

So really the focus of your article should have been is this a "retool" or a "rebuild"? If it is a "rebuild" then why are there still 4 remaining expensive veterans still here? And since they are still here, when can they expect Blake to provide them with a competitive supporting cast? I would challenge you to (a) find a similar situation in NHL history that mirrors what the Kings are trying to do and (b) determine whether it was successful if, in fact, such a situation ever existed. I think it is unique and that the team is headed for Buffalo West territory if they don't change directions quickly...like now. Either fully rebuild or make moves to be competitive. Those are the only options left at this point.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Let me respectfully disagree.

As far as I can tell (from nearly 50 years of following hockey) what Blake is trying to do is unique. Normally when a team decides to make changes AND keeps its top 5 veteran players around (in this case Doughty, Kopitar, Brown, Quick, and until recently Carter) the effort is called a "retool". It involves trading support players for other support players in order to change the chemistry and composition of the roster. The goal is to improve the roster not make it worse and the "retool" usually can be accomplished in 1-2 years so that the core can continue to compete.

What Blake has tried to do, however, is a rebuild while at the same time keeping his 5 most expensive and veteran players. Every trade of supporting players has been for prospect and draft picks. And yet the most expensive players remain. If this is a proper rebuild then (a) why are they still here? and (b) what should they expect from management in terms of the team's ability to compete for the remainder of their contracts? Doughty is the only one with the courage (or interest) in asking those questions.

So really the focus of your article should have been is this a "retool" or a "rebuild"? If it is a "rebuild" then why are there still 4 remaining expensive veterans still here? And since they are still here, when can they expect Blake to provide them with a competitive supporting cast? I would challenge you to (a) find a similar situation in NHL history that mirrors what the Kings are trying to do and (b) determine whether it was successful if, in fact, such a situation ever existed. I think it is unique and that the team is headed for Buffalo West territory if they don't change directions quickly...like now.

YOu hate Buffalo style rebuilds, right?

The expensive players remain because a. there's no better mentor for youth than two-way multiple cup winning studs like Kopitar and Doughty and to answer b. they, and others, including you and I are simply asking management to start working those assets and cap space--the same thing this entire forum is asking for.

Maybe you're right that it's unique in NHL history (not sure) and your'e certainly right that the "quick" retool (at least boston style, keeping chara etc) failed but the worst thing at this point would be an attempt at supercharging it into "window open" just for Drew and Anze.

 

[Kurrilino]

YOu hate Buffalo style rebuilds, right?

The expensive players remain because a. there's no better mentor for youth than two-way multiple cup winning studs like Kopitar and Doughty and to answer b. they, and others, including you and I are simply asking management to start working those assets and cap space--the same thing this entire forum is asking for.

And what exactly are those mentors suppose to teach?
All of our mentors hockey style is roughly 30 years old thx to 400 year old coaches who enforced hockey of the 70's. Beside that, not one of them is able to take over a game when it matters.
I don't want any of our youngsters exposed to this crap at all.
If you want to mentor them, trade the old generation and make the youngsters watch Avalanche games on tape over and over again.
As long as we are not willing to let this board battling, defense only style go, nothing will ever change.
It's also not helping that we hired a coach whose only accomplishment is to build the legendary "Choking Artists"

 

[tomd]

YOu hate Buffalo style rebuilds, right?

The expensive players remain because a. there's no better mentor for youth than two-way multiple cup winning studs like Kopitar and Doughty and to answer b. they, and others, including you and I are simply asking management to start working those assets and cap space--the same thing this entire forum is asking for.

Maybe you're right that it's unique in NHL history (not sure) and your'e certainly right that the "quick" retool (at least boston style, keeping chara etc) failed but the worst thing at this point would be an attempt at supercharging it into "window open" just for Drew and Anze.

I don't disagree with you but now it is clear (and it was always predictable) that Doughty (and probably Kopitar if he still even cares) has no interest in his role being confined to "mentor". That may be Blake's fantasy but it is not Doughty's reality. As I said, I think that was always the predictable outcome knowing Doughty's desire to compete. So now the only two courses of action are to (1) make Doughty happy by making "significant" moves this summer or (2) trading Doughty. As I've already said both courses have major risks. Trading Doughty will leave the Kings at Buffalo level talent. Keeping Doughty and continuing to lose will lead to Buffalo level dysfunction. Not pretty either way but that's why I was against this rebuild from the beginning. Blake's best course of action is to sacrifice some picks and prospects and utilize cap space to make this team competitive for 21-22. That's just the reality from my POV.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

And what exactly are those mentors suppose to teach?
All of our mentors hockey style is roughly 30 years old thx to 400 year old coaches who enforced hockey of the 70's. Beside that, not one of them is able to take over a game when it matters.
I don't want any of our youngsters exposed to this crap at all.
If you want to mentor them, trade the old generation and make the youngsters watch Avalanche games on tape over and over again.
As long as we are not willing to let this board battling, defense only style go, nothing will ever change.
It's also not helping that we hired a coach whose only accomplishment is to build the legendary "Choking Artists"

Well, without the vets, this season's centers would have been something like Vilardi-Kempe-JAD-Lizotte. We may have only finished slightly worse, but I'm not a fan of Vilardi getting his head bashed in all year by other teams' top players as well as the weight of expectations. Hell this forum rode the shit out of Gabe and Kempe and Lizotte in their reduced roles.

I don't disagree with you but now it is clear (and it was always predictable) that Doughty (and probably Kopitar if he still even cares) has no interest in his role being confined to "mentor". That may be Blake's fantasy but it is not Doughty's reality. As I said, I think that was always the predictable outcome knowing Doughty's desire to compete. So now the only two courses of action are to (1) make Doughty happy by making "significant" moves this summer or (2) trading Doughty. As I've already said both courses have major risks. Trading Doughty will leave the Kings at Buffalo level talent. Keeping Doughty and continuing to lose will lead to Buffalo level dysfunction. Not pretty either way but that's why I was against this rebuild from the beginning. Blake's best course of action is to sacrifice some picks and prospects and utilize cap space to make this team competitive for 21-22. That's just the reality from my POV.

I think there's a lot more grey area between going for it all and trading Doughty is all.

 

[tomd]

Well, without the vets, this season's centers would have been something like Vilardi-Kempe-JAD-Lizotte. We may have only finished slightly worse, but I'm not a fan of Vilardi getting his head bashed in all year by other teams' top players as well as the weight of expectations. Hell this forum rode the shit out of Gabe and Kempe and Lizotte in their reduced roles.




I think there's a lot more grey area between going for it all and trading Doughty is all.

I think Doughty would be happy if the team were competitive enough to do some damage in the playoffs and play important games again. That is his reality and Blake needs to respect him enough to do the right thing for him...satisfy his desire to compete or trade him.

 

[BudBundy]

The headline says it all. Agree? Disagree? Your comments and thoughts are welcome and encouraged!

Doughty Throws Down Gauntlet to LA Kings Management. But Was He Right?

Doughty needs to shut his mouth and at least pretend to have some class. When the Kings were rebuilding before Doughty came along, did you hear guys like Rob Blake and Brad Stuart whine and complain through a tough ‘07/‘08 season? The one that got them the 2nd overall pick they used to get Doughty? Take your lumps. Do the best you can. And teach all the good youngsters you’ve got coming along how to be a professional. Do your part, and the team will rise again. “Waaah I’m getting older and need more help.” Gtfo.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Doughty needs to shut his mouth and at least pretend to have some class. When the Kings were rebuilding before Doughty came along, did you hear guys like Rob Blake and Brad Stuart whine and complain through a tough ‘07/‘08 season? The one that got them the 2nd overall pick they used to get Doughty? Take your lumps. Do the best you can. And teach all the good youngsters you’ve got coming along how to be a professional. Do your part, and the team will rise again. “Waaah I’m getting older and need more help.” Gtfo.

Brad Stuart was lucky to be in the league, it would be like Maatta complaining.

Aaaaand you may need to both read the quotes AND some Rob Blake history but I'm sure others here will handle that part for you

And he's DEFINITELY doing the boldfaced, maybe check out his play this year and his support and praise of the other young dmen.

I never, ever see people defending management teams unless they can take a shot at Drew Doughty, which says more about the commenter than it does about Drew.

 

[Rusty Batch]

Once we lucked out and got Byfield the tanking phase of this rebuild should have been over. The fact that we did it for one more year was brutal. If we go into another year with management actively trying to lose it will be gross.

Management at this point should have a good feel for which prospects are important to keep and which ones aren't. Trade the ones we've soured on, spend the cap space we have (in a way that makes sense long term) and play the young kids that spent a year in the AHL.

 

[Mats26]

Once we lucked out and got Byfield the tanking phase of this rebuild should have been over. The fact that we did it for one more year was brutal. If we go into another year with management actively trying to lose it will be gross.

Management at this point should have a good feel for which prospects are important to keep and which ones aren't. Trade the ones we've soured on, spend the cap space we have (in a way that makes sense long term) and play the young kids that spent a year in the AHL.

MacDavid was drafted in 2015, they have been a dumperster fire for those 5 years. MacDavid also had 4 x 100+ seasons, Byfeild is no MacDavid.
Guess what, with the right management and coach the Oilers seem to have turned the corner.

I agree with the rest of your post.
Mismanagement is the cause of most issues, there seems to be a disconnect on where we should be at this point. We are clearly not a playoff team, we are currently in a slow rebuild(year 2 of 5). Stop with the PR crap of leading fans on to make the playoffs, we are at best a .500 team. The GM is in the hot seat now becasue of promises he made for this off season, time to walk the walk.

 

[Rusty Batch]

MacDavid was drafted in 2015, they have been a dumperster fire for those 5 years. MacDavid also had 4 x 100+ seasons, Byfeild is no MacDavid.
Guess what, with the right management and coach the Oilers seem to have turned the corner.

I agree with the rest of your post.
Mismanagement is the cause of most issues, there seems to be a disconnect on where we should be at this point. We are clearly not a playoff team, we are currently in a slow rebuild(year 2 of 5). Stop with the PR crap of leading fans on to make the playoffs, we are at best a .500 team. The GM is in the hot seat now becasue of promises he made for this off season, time to walk the walk.

My point about Adding Byfield to our prospect pool really had nothing to do with the oilers or McDavid.

Prior to the Byfield draft our prospect pool was ALREADY considered to be the best in the league. What we were missing was a true franchise type prospect. Well once we added Byfield, we had checked that box.

Fact is we had cap space to add this past season and again we chose to tank instead.
I understand the argument for it last season, and what's done is done. But this has to be the season that we call up the kids who have at least one year of pro experience and spend some of our asserts and our cap space. We need to be smart and not get stuck in bad long term contracts or make bad trades, but that's what Blake's job is, time to do it.

Any moron can just intentionally be bad, flip older players for futures and pray for lottery luck.

Time to actually be a GM

 

[kingsboy11]

I think a big move will be made, whether through trade or free agency,, but I don't see Blake going all in and spend the remainder cap space. I think he'll either go big on a forward or defenseman and then supplement the rest of the roster with smaller shorter term deals.

I think we're too far into this to abandon the plan of drafting and developing and starting spending to get back to relevancy. I'm in favor to heavily improve the team, but not at the detriment of the healthy prospect pool that they've done well to build i.e. Byfield, Kaliyev, Turcotte, Bjornfot, Vilardi

 

[AzKing]

Blake and Robitaille are both just clock punchers at their respective positions. AEG dictates what to do and say and they just pass the message. Let's see if Blake actually does something of value this offseason to improve the on ice product and earn his paycheck because the scouts are the ones doing all the heavy lifting when it comes to the draft.

Robitaille is just worthless and is there to kiss babies, drop ceremonial pucks and smile like an idiot during interviews. He has no skills whatsoever to do his job at a high level and never will. That's the NHL though in a nutshell. For every former player who ends up being a good executive, the other 90% are just lint but they win the press conference with the hire.

 

[MBH]

Once we lucked out and got Byfield the tanking phase of this rebuild should have been over. The fact that we did it for one more year was brutal. If we go into another year with management actively trying to lose it will be gross.

Management at this point should have a good feel for which prospects are important to keep and which ones aren't. Trade the ones we've soured on, spend the cap space we have (in a way that makes sense long term) and play the young kids that spent a year in the AHL.

You didn't have a choice.
And you don't next year either.

The Kings won't be a contender until the prospects make them a contender.


You're at $61M or so before next season starts.

What are you going to do?
Are you going to go trade for Eichel?
Are you going to waste money on a UFA center that impedes your ability to develop your young up-and-comers?

You need defense,
You can't have Mike Anderson, Matt Roy and Sean Walker - who should probably all be bottom pairing guys, in your top 4.
Tjornfot is a solid prospect. Maybe Klague too.
But how are you supposed to bring these guys into the lineup when your defense is already filled with bottom pairing guys.

The Kings defense, outside of Doughty, is very poor at transition. So many bad shifts happen because the Kings D makes sloppy passes in their own zone.

Kings need to get Power, Hughes, Clark or Edvinsson this year.
And then they need to spend 4 years developing them.
By that point, Byfield and Turcotte and Kaliyev and co should be doing nice things.
But Kopitar will be 37.

I think I'd keep Kopitar and Doughty as mentors around. But if they don't understand that they're going to struggle - then they need to be moved.
For Kopy, it probably means 3-4 seasons outside the playoffs before he retires.
For Doughty, maybe he can be a greybeard during the Kings rebirth.

 

[KingsOfCali25]

It's a little of both. He is right that this team needs to be moving forward adding legitimate NHL talent (not just drafting) but wrong to just throw away the young prospects for short term gains.

The problem is making a competitive team vs a competitive franchise. That's always been a large issue for any management team. I know people are riding Blake and Luc about how they are performing but they have been doing the right thing to build the franchise back up. Yes they are sacrificing the team a little too much but now is the time to build the team back up with a good franchise foundation.

It comes at the perfect time too as the expansion draft will be making teams be more willing to move their younger non-exempt for something rather than nothing. A lot of teams now realize what to do from the last expansion draft and not lose someone like Anaheim did with Theodore without compensation. Let's just hope Blake doesn't overpay for those guys or go out and overpay for a guy like Eichel. I think an Eichel move is better suited in like 1 or 2 years.

 

[Rusty Batch]

You didn't have a choice.
And you don't next year either.

The Kings won't be a contender until the prospects make them a contender.


You're at $61M or so before next season starts.

What are you going to do?
Are you going to go trade for Eichel?
Are you going to waste money on a UFA center that impedes your ability to develop your young up-and-comers?

You need defense,
You can't have Mike Anderson, Matt Roy and Sean Walker - who should probably all be bottom pairing guys, in your top 4.
Tjornfot is a solid prospect. Maybe Klague too.
But how are you supposed to bring these guys into the lineup when your defense is already filled with bottom pairing guys.

The Kings defense, outside of Doughty, is very poor at transition. So many bad shifts happen because the Kings D makes sloppy passes in their own zone.

Kings need to get Power, Hughes, Clark or Edvinsson this year.
And then they need to spend 4 years developing them.
By that point, Byfield and Turcotte and Kaliyev and co should be doing nice things.
But Kopitar will be 37.

I think I'd keep Kopitar and Doughty as mentors around. But if they don't understand that they're going to struggle - then they need to be moved.
For Kopy, it probably means 3-4 seasons outside the playoffs before he retires.
For Doughty, maybe he can be a greybeard during the Kings rebirth.

I think this is such a simple position that is sadly shared by a bunch of people on this forum. It's not as black and white as people like you want to make it seem.

Championship teams aren't perfect, every player is not at the same perfect stage of development. Every hole isn't perfectly filled.

We have the benefit of lots of cheap elc players that are ready to contribute and almost by default they are ready to contribute above their cap hit which is an amazing thing to have. We also have a couple vets that can fill incredibly important roles. We also have a ton of cap space to fill in holes. The prospects don't have to actually carry us. But if we play them they will be the most important reason we can make a very good roster. Because that many young players exceeding cheap contracts is tremendously valuable.

 

[Rusty Batch]

Almost without exception a good player will never be as valuable to his team as when he is on his ELC deal. Some teams can't take advantage of this because they don't have vets to fill crucial roles like #1c, #1d, #1G (we don't have this problem) or they don't have the cap space to add talent and fill holes around their elc players (we don't have this problem at all).

We can put together a talented young roster next season without "sacrificing" our future. If we do it right, the roster goes through some growing pains next year and then becomes real dangerous for quite a long time.

 

[MBH]

I think this is such a simple position that is sadly shared by a bunch of people on this forum. It's not as black and white as people like you want to make it seem.

Championship teams aren't perfect, every player is not at the same perfect stage of development. Every hole isn't perfectly filled.

We have the benefit of lots of cheap elc players that are ready to contribute and almost by default they are ready to contribute above their cap hit which is an amazing thing to have. We also have a couple vets that can fill incredibly important roles. We also have a ton of cap space to fill in holes. The prospects don't have to actually carry us. But if we play them they will be the most important reason we can make a very good roster. Because that many young players exceeding cheap contracts is tremendously valuable.

So show me how you do it?
You absolutely need a legit 2C.
You spend 1/2 the f***ing season with Blake Lizotte as 2C.
So which young center do you sacrifice to go overpay for your 2C in free agency.
I'm a Red Wings fan. I've checked, as we're in the same situation.
There aren't good options.
How about on defense. Again. Wings fan. I've checked.
Lots of Wings fans think Alex Martinez is the guy to lead them next year.
Kings fans know that you can have Doughty and Martinez and still suck, right?

You're in a rebuild, man. You can't just snap your fingers and be done with it.