All The Kings Men
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- Apr 7, 2016
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Speculation: Fire Rob Blake Blow it Up Offseason Thread (update: Robitaille, Blake and Hiller stay)
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Lt Dan
F*** your ice cream!
Mattias
The friendly cat.
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“B-b-b-but rookie of the year in baseball can be age of 26! It takes 7 years to decide if a player is good in the nhl!” - Mark Yannetti
Herby
How could Blake have known?
I never mentioned anything about peaking.
A New Look at Aging Curves for NHL Skaters (part 1)
How do NHL players age? When do they peak? How quickly do they decline? Questions about player aging in the NHL have been debated for years, and an incredible amount of research has already been do…hockey-graphs.com
"Initially, it looks like the average NHL skater “peaks” at 23. However, since the change between ages 22 and 25 is minimal, it might be better to say the average NHL skater plateaus from age 22 to 25. Personally, I feel that “peak age” (from a delta method perspective) is rather misleading and something of a misnomer, but I digress… This is about as basic an age curve as we can construct using the delta method."
Players who are turning 25 and 24 this coming season and are fifth year pros should not be referred to as kids, as I have heard these players referred to here as recently as this offseason.
Do you believe it’s fair to refer to these three players as “kids” and “youthful” when they are waiver eligible? Why if they are still kids does the NHL CBA make them waiver eligible?
Players can hit UFA after their age 26 season (as we know all to well thanks to Blake’s recent signings) and be waived in their age 23 season but 24 and 25 are kids?
Good lord, please tell me he didn’t use the baseball analogy?
How many baseball players are leading teams to championships 3-4 years after being drafted? It happens pretty frequently in the NHL. (Kane, Doughty, Toews, Crosby, Makar, Malkin).
The players I mentioned for the Kings are waiver eligible (year 2 of it for Thomas) but the management, development and now apparently the evaluation team believe they are still “kids”. I guess that explains how you lose previously highly thought of prospects like Bjornfot and JAD for nothing to waivers. Every other team realizes if a player you used a ton of draft capital on or thought highly of at 18 is still in the minors at 22 that it’s a big problem and probably best to cut bait. To the Kings it’s totally normal for these players to be “slow cooked” and still in the minors. The men running this team are just so lost on so many things, it’s almost unbelievable.
“What do you mean we have to waive him to send him down? He’s still a kid!”
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All The Kings Men
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I was trying to support your post not argue with it.
When people talk about "the kids" and they mention a bunch of guys 23 and older I chortle.
I agree.
No.
No.
Herby
How could Blake have known?
All The Kings Men
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It wasn't terribly clear I admit.
I don't know if I agree with the idea that players "peak" when they're 24 but everything I've seen or heard suggests that offensive production plateaus much earlier than people assume it does.
It's part of the reason having cost controlled offense is so valuable. I've often argued that the true value of Carter and Richards was their absurd cap circumventing contracts. Jeff Carter would not have been on the Kings with a market value contract and neither would Mike Richards.
Marian Gaborik was a cost retained acquisition
Pearson and Toffoli were ELC
Williams was underpaid because of injury history
Brown was on his notoriously underpaid "team friendly contract"
Doughty was making $7M for 8 years which was probably a bridge deal despite being his first contract after his ELC
Kopitar was also playing on a relatively low paying second contract
etc etc etc
and skip the whole "you have to account for cap increases" cus I don't feel like doing the cap % conversion on all of those
EDIT: the last sentence isn't directed at anyone in particular just saying I'm aware of that argument
Herby
How could Blake have known?
I’d have to dig deeper to confirm, but my guess is the Kings under Blake have to be near the bottom of the league in games and points by players on ELC’s. The amazing thing about that is under Blake the Kings have drafted four players inside the top 12, yet have gotten one season of any significance (Byfield’s 20G, 55 pt season in the final year of his ELC), which even that is well below the typical production of a 2OA in an age 21 season.
And while superstars on ELC’s like Kane and Makar are not common things, many great teams have gotten solid production from developing players on ELC’s. The Kings seem to be completely against the idea of players contributing and developing simultaneously (see the refusal to play Clarke for most of the 2023/24 season), and thus have failed to capitalize on a non-peak but still very good player making $925k.
It’s almost an impossibility to win in a cap league when you are getting such little production from players on ELC’s, especially ones that you used such significant draft capital on.
It is yet another reason (of many) why the slow cook development strategy is just insanely stupid, and why nobody else in the league is as committed to it as the Kings are.
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All The Kings Men
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I'm not gonna get into it cus I just typed out a whole long thing and then deleted it cus I'm not interested in having those thoughts on public record but...
slow cooking is fine depending on which course you're slow cooking
Slow cooking your main course is a problem particularly if your first course from last night is still on the table.
Slow cooking your second course or third course is just fine because those courses aren't going to carry the meal. They're going to provide palette cleansers and complimentary flavors and experiences. They might even provide a little roughage and fiber. Those are terms right?
anyway I'm gonna stop now
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
We had an interesting discussion around 'prime' around the 2014 Cup
Similar to what Jesse said we all found 'production' prime to be relatively early, early to mid 20s depending on criteria.
But true all-around primes seemed to hit later, like mid to late 20s, the teams that were winning Cups aren't typically 'young' teams, they're teams with great 'production prime' talents that have matured into supreme alla round players, they've learned to harness the balance between all out offense and stuffing the opponent
Something, for example, a player like Kevin Fiala never matured into. Some guys can score like madmen their whole careers but never figure it out. sorry Erik Karlsson fans
Edit: actually, NOT sorry Erik Karlsson fans, he's actually the perfect example because the only year he knew where his slot was was the year he was damn near unstoppable.
Similar to what Jesse said we all found 'production' prime to be relatively early, early to mid 20s depending on criteria.
But true all-around primes seemed to hit later, like mid to late 20s, the teams that were winning Cups aren't typically 'young' teams, they're teams with great 'production prime' talents that have matured into supreme alla round players, they've learned to harness the balance between all out offense and stuffing the opponent
Something, for example, a player like Kevin Fiala never matured into. Some guys can score like madmen their whole careers but never figure it out. sorry Erik Karlsson fans
Edit: actually, NOT sorry Erik Karlsson fans, he's actually the perfect example because the only year he knew where his slot was was the year he was damn near unstoppable.
Choralone
Registered User
Herby
How could Blake have known?
This is a fair point, I don't think having depth pieces cook forever is a terrible thing, but for guys expected to be at the top of the lineup it's a huge problem because you need these guys producing on ELC's, and again that is why nobody else is doing it this way. Nobody else is handling top players the way the Kings are.
Look at a guy like QB, you use a #2 overall pick on him, you basically get zero for the first three years (with one year tolling), one good but not great season at age 21, and then you sign him to a second contract where (correct me if I'm wrong) no UFA years were bought. So now the Kings are getting only six good seasons of a #2 pick before he hits UFA, with only one of those good seasons being on the ELC. Contrast this to the way the team who took the player right after him handled him, they got three seasons on an ELC, with one of those seasons being a dominant star-level season at age 20. They then sign the player to an 8 year-extension, so they will have 11 seasons of their player before UFA, or five more seasons than the Kings will get from a player taken one pick before. How can anyone defend this? Even more amazing because mere months after using the #2 pick on a player they wanted to slow-cook/deemed a huge project, they ended their rebuild and committed to trying to win championships with guys in their mid 30's. That is a massive contradiction of ideas. If the goal was to try and win with 11 and 8 they should have either taken Stutzle (if they would have put him in the NHL) or trade the pick for immediate help. How do you use a #2 overall pick and then slow-cook him as Kopitar and DD aged (those years were AK's 33,34,35 and DD's 31,32,33 seasons)?
If you were continuing a rebuild through (say this past season) and you thought QB had the higher ceiling, sure go ahead and take him and play the long game and hope he comes out of it a star at 23-25 and add him to whatever else you have after a few more terrible seasons. (Byfield with Faber, Fantilli, Clark and Gauthier for example would look pretty nice about now, eh? But they never had any intention of playing the long-game, that was apparent with the moves they made in the summer of 21 and 22 where any concern about the long-term went out the window.
Also, if you believe that a #2 OA pick isn't going to hit his peak until 24-25 years old (I believe that is what Emerson told either KOTP or your show), THEN WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU SIGNING HIM TO A CONTRACT THAT YOU LOSE TEAM CONTROL OF HIM AT 26?!?!
Nothing that this organization has done under this regime makes any sense, there just seems to be absolutely no plan at all. The moves they make are just completely independent of other moves they have made, it's like my ten year old playing chess.
Btw, I know you are in a bit of a tough spot with this, so if this is the furthest this discussion can go I completely understand. Thanks for the previous responses.
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- Mar 9, 2002
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At this point I would love to see Yannetti take over. Just listens to him on Kings of the podcast and heard a few things I liked especially when it came to when a player is ready for the NHL. He used Ottawa (Stutzle) vs L.A (Byfield). One thrown in and given PP time and the other put through a process and made to earn time.
The thing I liked is he said even if the Kings are slow bake he believed Ottawa was not effectively getting a player well rounded but his philosophy was in the middle of what the Kings and L.A do. I would be more then onboard with this.
Great listen as he answered fans questions and gave incite on prospects like Ziemmer, Clarke, Dvorak and the goalies. Can tell he likes Ziemmer a lot.
Not sure if he was joking or not, but he said he’d like to be a GM at sometime
The thing I liked is he said even if the Kings are slow bake he believed Ottawa was not effectively getting a player well rounded but his philosophy was in the middle of what the Kings and L.A do. I would be more then onboard with this.
Great listen as he answered fans questions and gave incite on prospects like Ziemmer, Clarke, Dvorak and the goalies. Can tell he likes Ziemmer a lot.
Not sure if he was joking or not, but he said he’d like to be a GM at sometime
SaltyElkHunter
I …. am…. The LA Kings!
Like to think of prospects like a good piece of fish only way to ruin is overcook it.
I picked that up to about being a Gm someday and it did not sound like he was joking at all. The thing Yannetti always says is, he wants to always be evolving and I would think that applies to management. I would love to see Luc and Blake gone, bring in Futa as team president and Yannetti as gm. They've work well together in the past.
tigermask48
Maniacal Laugh
Has there been anyone that this regime have had success with this "slow cook" method outside of maybe Byfield?
Kempe seems like the answer, but he was in the NHL by 19...
Moverare was left in the oven too long.
Kupari was slow cooked out of an NHL roster spot on his new team.
Fagemo, cooked into waiver fodder.
Bjornfot, cooked directly into the press box and then off the roster.
JAD never looked as good in the NHL as he did those first handfuls of games.
Clague was cooked directly to Montreal then Buffalo.
Villardi was expected to play out of position and was deemed such a disappointment he was traded for a guy he almost outscored alone this past season.
Villalta was slow cooked into a decent AHL goalie after never getting a chance in LA.
Ingham was slow cooked right into an ECHL goalie despite showing he could hang in the AHL.
Turcotte had soup made in his skull, twice! at least! In the AHL.
Kaliev was ground into dust in a checking role and pretty much doesn't exist at this point.
Spence and Clarke have been jerked around more than a yoyo. (Trying to keep this rant PG)
Anderson, and Laff, not slow cooked and well look at that, both trending in the right direction this far.
Kempe seems like the answer, but he was in the NHL by 19...
Moverare was left in the oven too long.
Kupari was slow cooked out of an NHL roster spot on his new team.
Fagemo, cooked into waiver fodder.
Bjornfot, cooked directly into the press box and then off the roster.
JAD never looked as good in the NHL as he did those first handfuls of games.
Clague was cooked directly to Montreal then Buffalo.
Villardi was expected to play out of position and was deemed such a disappointment he was traded for a guy he almost outscored alone this past season.
Villalta was slow cooked into a decent AHL goalie after never getting a chance in LA.
Ingham was slow cooked right into an ECHL goalie despite showing he could hang in the AHL.
Turcotte had soup made in his skull, twice! at least! In the AHL.
Kaliev was ground into dust in a checking role and pretty much doesn't exist at this point.
Spence and Clarke have been jerked around more than a yoyo. (Trying to keep this rant PG)
Anderson, and Laff, not slow cooked and well look at that, both trending in the right direction this far.
People that forget that Vilardi, prior to his breakout season, was destined for the 4th line or a healthy scratch when fans were preparing their off season rosters a few years back due to the overload of forwards.
Herby
How could Blake have known?
He never ever should have been playing C in the NHL. That should have been QB’s spot centering Carter in the 2020-21 season and not Gabe’s.
Give the Kings credit, they were able to fix that just in time to salvage his career and his trade value (which they proceeded to use poorly). Remember, the consensus here was that sending him down to the AHL to learn to play wing was a poor move, even Vilardi himself was very unhappy, but he is where he is because of that decision, he was never good in the NHL as a center but has developed into a solid top 6 winger.
I remember when he was traded to WPG some Jets fans and writers insisted the plan was to play him at C, I do believe that probably was the case, until the Jets saw that same difference in the player when he plays each position and not surprisingly had him at wing the whole year.
- Mar 9, 2002
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I would agree to the theory but half those guys in reality may not have been good enough to play a regular shift in the NHL no matter how they were cooked. Some I agree there were some poor handled guys but maybe guys like Fagemo,Villalta and Ingham just are not good enough.
Kupari, Byfield, Turcotte, and Vilardi all had major injuries that set them back and extended their minor league careers and in Kupari and Turcotte’s case maybe robbed them of critical growth time.
I am supportive of our amateur scouting staff and very negative with our development staff and development philosophy. The thing that struck me looking back at our prospects is just how unlucky we have had it injury wise to our top prospects. Lately Ziemmer missed most the season and our Russian left shot Dman, having brain fart, came over but couldn’t play.
Unfortunately Luc’s apparent lobotomy at and early presser telling us about family and Christmas cookies or something, the handling of Clarke, the deployment of skilled rookies on a checking line and Blake’s lack of a plan make me see red. I want to ignore the Covid effect, the injuries, and concentrate solely on why each prospect is not living up to expectations or timelines even if some of the problem may be the prospects themselves or just drafting the wrong player for our system.
It’s not like we drafted 5 top 5 guys like the Oilers did a few years ago. I think the players that we drafted were drafted where they should have been or close to where they should have been. I never expect anyone outside a top 50 pick to pan out and am elated when they do. We do have to nail the early picks when we get them and they have to be players that both fit the system, have no health concerns and have a huge amount of skill. Can’t draft square pegs to fit in round holes and can’t draft elite skilled guys and bring them up as checkers. Somewhere in this organization the wires are badly crossed and that is in Bluc. If they can’t figure it out time for a change.
tigermask48
Maniacal Laugh
I'm very much on the same page as you, I think the scouting has been great. The Kings have done an amazing job identifying players that can be NHL players and an absolutely terrible job putting them in roles to succeed.
I don't think it's fair to give the development staff a free pass when ALL these guys are failing.
This is a prospect pool that was almost universally considered right near the top or at the top of the league a few years ago.
It wasn't just a bunch of fans that saw what the Kings had, it was other scouts, journalists, and people that cover the NHL as their job. They all saw this prospect pool and thought it was special.
And now here we are, a bunch traded away, others stagnated, and others actively failing to live up to expectations.
But the one thing they all have in common is they came up in this slow cooking development system the Kings are doing... and the results are very ugly.
King'sPawn
Enjoy the chaos
- Jul 1, 2003
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I keep wanting to finish listening to the interview. Keep getting distracted. A couple other points:
- Yannetti basically confirmed Letourneau was high on their list when he said "after pick 24, we were 100% sure we were getting one of our guys."
- Ziemmer was almost guaranteed to play in the AHL if he played all of last season. But with the amount of time he's missed and his inability to get in shape due to injury, it's more like 50/50
- Discussed the "it" factor to great depth with George. Said he demonstrates it regularly even though it doesn't show up on the stats sheet. Like making a needed save when they are down 4-1 to stop it from being 5-1. And people don't focus much on it until they make it 4-2 and 4-3. Said it's very much like Quick, Kopitar, and Doughty where the guys in the room can count on them making needed plays. He also said he didn't want to spend a second round pick on George, based on general pick value and goaltenders.
- Re: Dvorak. Didn't commit to next steps for him, but had an interesting perspective. He's the type of player who plays up to the level of competition, but likes that when he's playing at the lower levels, he's taking advantage of the situation by practicing puck skills, something he's not strong in, against a level of competition he's safer to practice against.
- Re: Reeder, it is an unfortunate but expected aspect about not being able to attend dev camp. He focused a lot on his character.
- talked about how there have been some revamps in the scouting department they've been wanting to do and were overdue, but didn't lay out the architecture or analytics (as expected).
That's all I remember offhand as far as hockey stuff. Hoven and him have had a lot of interviews so there was a lot of "fluff" about traveling, Ruuttu, etc to start.
- May 9, 2014
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It was a great interview tbf. A lot of good stuff from Yannetti.
Herby
How could Blake have known?
This teams next GM, and the entire hockey ops needs to be fresh faces, like it was in the summer of 2006. The firing of the bosses to promote the people below them failed miserably in 2017 and it's very likely to fail again if the Kings go down that path.
Yannetti has for years now gone onto these various podcasts and defended the slow-cook and taken shots at many other teams around the league for more aggressive player development, which is now the norm in the NHL, especially with high picks. Is he being a loyal soldier to his employer? Maybe, but he sure seems to enthusiastically defend it, I really doubt if he were named GM that he is going to do a complete 180, based on his comments every summer. But that is exactly what the team needs, a total 180 in player development.
When the BLuc nightmare is over, my hope is the Kings bring in some kind of older steward that will be in charge of interviewing and hiring the next GM. The Kings will likely be going through a complete teardown, and one of the most important things is to make sure that the new GM has a philosophy that is more in-line with the rest of the league when it comes to player development. The Kings will very likely be picking for 3-4 years squarely in the Top 10, if not Top 5 and the expectation has to be that those picks are contributing players for a good chunk of their ELC's. You just can't have an organizational philosophy that requires those four players to play 300 combined AHL games as was the case with this generations high picks (Byfield, Turcotte, Clark and Vilardi). In a cap league that gets younger and younger it's imperative to be young and talented at the NHL level.
Yannetti has for years now gone onto these various podcasts and defended the slow-cook and taken shots at many other teams around the league for more aggressive player development, which is now the norm in the NHL, especially with high picks. Is he being a loyal soldier to his employer? Maybe, but he sure seems to enthusiastically defend it, I really doubt if he were named GM that he is going to do a complete 180, based on his comments every summer. But that is exactly what the team needs, a total 180 in player development.
When the BLuc nightmare is over, my hope is the Kings bring in some kind of older steward that will be in charge of interviewing and hiring the next GM. The Kings will likely be going through a complete teardown, and one of the most important things is to make sure that the new GM has a philosophy that is more in-line with the rest of the league when it comes to player development. The Kings will very likely be picking for 3-4 years squarely in the Top 10, if not Top 5 and the expectation has to be that those picks are contributing players for a good chunk of their ELC's. You just can't have an organizational philosophy that requires those four players to play 300 combined AHL games as was the case with this generations high picks (Byfield, Turcotte, Clark and Vilardi). In a cap league that gets younger and younger it's imperative to be young and talented at the NHL level.
- Mar 9, 2002
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I disagree. Do not want a 180 as I have watched Edmonton, Buffalo and Ottawa throw rookies into the fire and as a team they have done no better and in most cases worse then L.A. these are also teams that are picking a lot higher then L.A on average. Other than Byfield who is panning out after being a Covid kid, broken ankle guy and sick twice and Turcotte the highest pick we have had is Clarke who I 100 % agree was mishandled.
I would want something in the middle. Say a 270 approach depending on each prospect.
This might be the simplest. If we’re picking top 5 it should be a fast boil. 5 to 10. It shouldn’t be much longer after 10. It’s a crapshoot as some of those guys might need a medium boil or a longer boil.
If it’s around four guy that projects out to be a checker then it might take a little bit longer for him to hone his craft.
We took a gamble on Kaliyev who blew our load over when picked but all knew the hazard flags. Guys like this are the ones that might need a more individualized path as for every thing they excel that there seems to be something else that they suck at
Hope that makes sense
King'sPawn
Enjoy the chaos
- Jul 1, 2003
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I agree. It's not even that everything needs to be revolutionized, but there has to be the capacity to do some honest assessments and adjusting to what works and what doesn't.
The biggest plight on the team isn't even going for it. It's the doubling and tripling down with the assumption they're 'one player' away.
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