GM Rob Blake 2017-18 Report Card

[damacles1156]

Free agents whether they are drafted or undrafted are looking for the organization which gives them the best chance to get to the NHL in the least amount of time.

I'm sure it's no secret among goaltenders that the Kings goalie development team is among the best in the NHL. Martin Jones is the best example of this. Peterson is looking to follow in Jones' footsteps whether it be as Quick's eventual successor, or with another NHL team.

Who hired Bill Ranford and put that Goalie staff in place ? Dean Lombardi, which he gets ZERO credit for.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Pavel Rosa was a very good AHL player.

After trading away so many picks Lombardi wasn't allowed to try and recoup some of the prospects, he was fired.

He was fired because a team as talented as the Kings failed to reach the playoffs in two of the previous three seasons and won one single playoff game after 2014. He had three years to replenish the barren cupboard and did no such thing.

 

[damacles1156]

He was fired because a team as talented as the Kings failed to reach the playoffs in two of the previous three seasons and won one single playoff game after 2014. He had three years to replenish the barren cupboard and did no such thing.

Yeah we get it.


Lombardi was the dumbest GM the Kings ever had and everything he did was terrible.

The thread asked for a grade on Blake, we are giving one.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Yeah we get it.


Lombardi was the dumbest GM the Kings ever had and everything he did was terrible.

The thread asked for a grade on Blake, we are giving one.

Says the person making excuses. Settle down, drama queen.

You also whined about losing Nick Shore and the Kings getting older when they acquired Phaneuf. We get it, you yearn for Lombardi and his Bostonian accent.

 

[KINGS17]

Who hired Bill Ranford and put that Goalie staff in place ? Dean Lombardi, which he gets ZERO credit for.

I wouldn't say Dean gets zero credit. Knowledgeable fans and posters on this site no full well Dean put the infrastructure in place which was the foundation for the organization's success. Now it's a question of whether or not Luc Robitaille can maintain it. The infrastructure is already showing some signs of cracks. They can't seem to do an honest appraisal of the current roster's ability to contend. Dean allowed those cracks to start when he couldn't move on from certain players and couldn't admit the great 3-year run was over.

 

[damacles1156]

Says the person making excuses. Settle down, drama queen.

Excuse for what ?

I simply stated a fact about the Goalie staff. And how Lombardi squander tons of picks that led to his firing, and how he didn't get an opportunity to right his numerous mistakes.

 

[KINGS17]

Says the person making excuses. Settle down, drama queen.

You also whined about losing Nick Shore and the Kings getting older when they acquired Phaneuf. We get it, you yearn for Lombardi and his Bostonian accent.

I get that Phaneuf is likely the only kind of return you are going to get for Gaborik, and he has some value, but the Phaneuf trade is hardly a stroke of genius.

I like that Phaneuf seems to be a very solid teammate and the kids are likely to learn something about being a pro's pro from him.

 

[damacles1156]

I wouldn't say Dean gets zero credit. Knowledgeable fans and posters on this site no full well Dean put the infrastructure in place which was the foundation for the organization's success. Now it's a question of whether or not Luc Robitaille can maintain it. The infrastructure is already showing some signs of cracks. They can't seem to do an honest appraisal of the current roster's ability to contend. Dean allowed those cracks to start when he couldn't move on from certain players and couldn't admit the great 3-year run was over.

At some point like all GM's have to do, Blake will be forced to take a gamble. If that gamble works out great he is the best GM ever, if that gamble fails people on this board will label him the biggest moron ever.

Maybe Doughty will be that gamble who knows.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Excuse for what ?

I simply stated a fact about the Goalie staff. And how Lombardi squander tons of picks that led to his firing, and how he didn't get an opportunity to right his numerous mistakes.

Excuses for Lombardi. He had a three year window to fix things, but he tried to go for the quick fix instead, and his short sighted decisions cost the team dearly and set the organization back for years.

If adding highly sought after free agents was so easy, why wasn’t he doing that? If you’re going to give him credit and praise for his hires, then surely you could hold him accountable for his misfires.

 

[damacles1156]

Excuses for Lombardi. He had a three year window to fix things, but he tried to go for the quick fix instead, and his short sighted decisions cost the team dearly and set the organization back for years.

If adding highly sought after free agents was so easy, why wasn’t he doing that? If you’re going to give him credit and praise for his hires, then surely you could hold him accountable for his misfires.

Of which we have done numerous times on this board, I wanted Lombardi fired in 2012 more than Herby for christ sakes. I thought along with this board Sutter was not a good hire he was old and dated. We can all move on, AS you say yourself : "It's ancient history"

 

[KINGS17]

At some point like all GM's have to do, Blake will be forced to take a gamble. If that gamble works out great he is the best GM ever, if that gamble fails people on this board will label him the biggest moron ever.

Maybe Doughty will be that gamble who knows.

Blake is going to make Doughty what the organization sees as a maximum offer. Look no further to Robitaille and Blake's involvement in the Kopitar negotiations. It started with Kopitar asking for 8 years and $80M, Dean saying they weren't even in the same ballpark, then somewhere down the line Robitaille and Blake get involved and Kopitar gets exactly what he wanted.

Doughty is going to make this decision for Blake. Blake does have full control regarding the timing of any moves. I would advocate not screwing around with this contract negotiation for very long after July 1, but Meehan likes the media attention so I doubt a deal gets done in July.

 

[damacles1156]

Blake is going to make Doughty what the organization sees as a maximum offer. Look no further to Robitaille and Blake's involvement in the Kopitar negotiations. It started with Kopitar asking for 8 years and $80M, Dean saying they weren't even in the same ballpark, then somewhere down the line Robitaille and Blake get involved and Kopitar gets exactly what he wanted.

Doughty is going to make this decision for Blake. Blake does have full control regarding the timing of any moves. I would advocate not screwing around with this contract negotiation for very long after July 1, but Meehan likes the media attention so I doubt a deal gets done in July.

If Blake can figure out how to make the roster work with 20+ million tied up in Drew/Kopitar, he gets an A+.

Heavily depends on if draft picks start contributing a lot faster than the slow cook the Kings are use too.
Futa needs to hit some homeruns.

 

[KINGS17]

If Blake can figure out how to make the roster work with 20+ million tied up in Drew/Kopitar, he gets an A+.

Heavily depends on if draft picks start contributing a lot faster than the slow cook the Kings are use too.
Futa needs to hit some homeruns.

My guess is no GM can do this as is evident by what is going on with Chicago. When these types of contracts are handed out the "supporting cast" feels they are worth more than their actual value and use those contracts as a starting point for negotiations.

For the Kings it's not just a matter of the Kopitar and Doughty contracts. It's having to hang onto players they should be moving in order to convince Doughty he should stay. If Doughty is re-signed, having the amount of cap space the Kings will have tied up in Kopitar, Doughty, Brown, Carter and Quick at their rather advanced ages for NHL players is not a good idea.

This may be Blake's last opportunity to move Carter, and possibly Quick, to get some use out of their value. I don't see the Kings contending before we reach their expiration dates as highly effective NHL players.

Any way if Blake figures this out before next season, his stock will rise in my eyes. Of course he may have many constraints placed on him by Robitaille, and we may never know if he is really allowed to act on his judgment alone.

 

[damacles1156]

I think he did a good job of adding some young assets to the organization. He also didn't squander any futures. (What you don't do is just as important as what you do). For that, I think he finally has the organization heading the right direction.

I would like to see the organization move guys like Carter, Muzzin, Martinez, Lewis to get a rebuild/reload going, but that doesn't appear to be happening.

D for staffing.
C for organizational direction (not completely under his control)
B for trades
C for UFA signings (not counting college or undrafted UFA's)
B for drafting / adding young assets.
B for what he didn't do.

That averages out to a C overall.

Very fair grades Johnjm22.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I gave him a C+, which I think is very fair. I think a lot of you are grading on some type of curve.

How do you give a GM an B+ or higher during a season which many of you called an "evaluation year"?

The same reason you give him an 'average' when his hands are tied, opinion. A lot of people feel he made a lot of good little moves. We get it, you're a pessimist, that's fine.

That Kuemper signing really was an under the radar move that isn’t getting any recognition.

This is true, but we are going to have to see if Reider has any impact at all on this roster before knowing the ultimate outcome.

Bullshit man, come on. Looking at just this season the Kuemper signing was great. The guy won 2/3 of his 15 starts with us and had some of the best stats in the NHL. It's incredibly petty to punish Blake for trading Kuemper for an asset of any kind given he was a UFA not going to sign here, even if I feel Rieder is trash. And especially because if ANYTHING the Kuemper trade is ex-f***ing-actly what you advocate for all over this damn forum, trade an asset for something before it's too late and get something. What did you expect, he was going to trade Kuemper for a full-time top sixer?

There are a lot of reasons, opinion wise, to give Blake a lower grade. Signing Kuemper, then trading him before it's too late for Rieder, is not one of them, that's indefensible.

 

[KINGS17]

The same reason you give him an 'average' when his hands are tied, opinion. A lot of people feel he made a lot of good little moves. We get it, you're a pessimist, that's fine.







Bull**** man, come on. Looking at just this season the Kuemper signing was great. The guy won 2/3 of his 15 starts with us and had some of the best stats in the NHL. It's incredibly petty to punish Blake for trading Kuemper for an asset of any kind given he was a UFA not going to sign here, even if I feel Rieder is trash. And especially because if ANYTHING the Kuemper trade is ex-****ing-actly what you advocate for all over this damn forum, trade an asset for something before it's too late and get something. What did you expect, he was going to trade Kuemper for a full-time top sixer?

There are a lot of reasons, opinion wise, to give Blake a lower grade. Signing Kuemper, then trading him before it's too late for Rieder, is not one of them, that's indefensible.

Indefensible? I have no criticism of the Kuemper signing. It was a stop gap measure which worked out, and trading him was absolutely the right thing to do in that situation. Is it an A+ move? No, it's a move which just makes sense. The ultimate return on the Kuemper signing is what becomes of Reider in this organization. You're being too defensive.

Again, I think history shows I am anything but a pessimist. Anyone who was around in 2012 knows this.

 

[damacles1156]

Indefensible? I have no criticism of the Kuemper signing. It was a stop gap measure which worked out, and trading him was absolutely the right thing to do in that situation. Is it an A+ move? No, it's a move which just makes sense. The ultimate return on the Kuemper signing is what becomes of Reider in this organization. You're being too defensive.

Again, I think history shows I am anything but a pessimist. Anyone who was around in 2012 knows this.

It's rather funny if you go back and read those 2012 threads. A good portion of us wanted Lombardi fired and thought Sutter was a dumb old dated coach. The both proved us all to be complete amateur hour morons on a message board. Yet we still sit here and label actual professional Hockey people as complete morons(not just Kings staff). We will have the same discussions about Blake in Five years time.

Comical.

 

[kingsboy11]

1) Lombardi set the standard in LA when he was hired. Everything from infrastructure, culture, staff hiring and the player personnel. He wasn't perfect, but he assembled the only Kings team to ever win the cup and we are forever grateful for what he has done for this franchise.

2) That all being said, you cannot deny the fact that after the 2014 cup, Lombardi was going backwards and did everything he could to keep the team going. In doing so, he kept trying to pull off Carter and Gaborik trades again and it set the team back.

2014-15: Despite winning the cup in 2014, he should've bought out Richards when he had the chance. I remember understanding why he didn't, but that doesn't make it the right decision. We were able to get out of it, but Richards will now be on the payroll forever basically. Now some of these things were not his fault. I don't think anyone could've predicted Voynov or Bartosak harming the team's future. Its unfortunate that Sekera got hurt when he did because he looked really good in those limited games for us, plus he also did well to protect that first round pick in case we did miss the playoffs. I'll give this season a pass for Lombardi because a lot of stuff went really wrong that was out of his control and that team was good enough to make the playoffs, but the Flames would not lose.

2015-16: Kings had their highest draft position since 2009 at 13th overall in the deepest draft since 2003. 4 players I remember really wanting to draft was Zacha, Barzal, Connor and Konecny in that order. Lombardi trade Martin Jones, Colin Miller, 13th overall for 1 season at 50% retained for Lucic. I remember trying to convince myself to like that trade, but it was really hard to see a player like Barzal and Connor continue to drop where we would've been. I don't care about losing Jones or Miller. Jones was going to ask too much and Miller's value was not going to be any higher after his season in Manchester that year. But trading for 1 year of Lucic? And even if he did resign him, you could predict he would have a similar situation with Brown.

2016-17: Sutter's contract was up at the end of that year and I personally thought he should not have been brought back. The team looked nothing like the 2 cup winning team and you could feel the tension growing being the players and Sutter. And its much easier to get rid of the coach than the players. Sutter stripped Brown of the captaincy and gave it Kopitar which I'm not sure was entirely necessary. The team had become stale and it needed a change after missing the playoffs twice in 3 years.

So is the life of a modern Sports executive. Now those who are criticizing Lombardi are not criticizing him prior to the 2 cups, they are criticizing him post cups. He did a lot of things right and gave the organization a plan and stuck with it until it paid off. After the cups though, he really had no plan and just kept hoping the team could regain their magic. We'll all be forever grateful for him, but he is not immune to criticism.

3) Probably still too early to rate Rob Blake's performance after just one season. But there are some positives. Blake refilled the barren cupboard of prospects. Our only goalie prospect after the Bartosak incident was Campbell, and he was drafted 6 years prior and we didn't even draft him. Now we have Campbell, Petersen, Kehler and Villalta, all of whom seem to have potential. We got a gift from the hockey gods in Vilardi and JAD and now we have guys to look forward too. We got out of Gaborik's deal and got Phaneuf at a lower cap hit and a lesser role.

Stevens hiring: Again probably still too early. I said it in my original post that our offense did improve, but was non existent at the end of the year which is concerning. I thought we should've look outside the organization (Gallant!) instead of just zeroing in Stevens just because he was the associate head coach.

No one is saying Blake is better or different than Lombardi. We can talk about that if we win another cup. But it seems like Blake is taking a more patient approach that Lombardi got away from after 2014. I believe we have to wait and see what he does this summer to fully evaluate. We wanted to see what the boys could do with Sutter gone and now we have an idea of where we need to improve.

 

[damacles1156]

I wouldn't say the prospect pool is full again. Vilardi/Clague are really the only legit blue-chip prospects. Blake did the best with what he had in front of him, that is fair to say.

But lets not pretend Blake fixed the barren waste land Futa/Lombardi left with trading/drafting poorly.

That will take years more of drafting under Blake/Futa before we can even remotely assess that.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I wouldn't say the prospect pool is full again. Vilardi/Clague are really the only legit blue-chip prospects. Blake did the best with what he had in front of him, that is fair to say.

But lets not pretend Blake fixed the barren waste land Futa/Lombardi left with trading/drafting poorly.

That will take years more of drafting under Blake/Futa before we can even remotely assess that.

Absolutely not but that's not fair to hold against his assessment imo, that's the hand he was dealt, and has taken a big step in the right direction.

 

[KINGS17]

Absolutely not but that's not fair to hold against his assessment imo, that's the hand he was dealt, and has taken a big step in the right direction.

I am not holding it against him. I think looking at a GM's performance over a single season is a very limited way to go about it.

Maybe an Incomplete is the more appropriate grade for Blake at this point in time.

 

[KINGS17]

Wrong thread.

 

[LAKings88]

Would have been nice to add a bit of scoring at the deadline but I think prices were high. Sounded like they may have been in on Nyqvist but if the ask was Tartar like I can see why they passed. Glad to have a first rounder in June. I wonder how Rieder’s numbers compare to other TD acquisitions.

 

[kenito7]

I think it is fair to give Blake a B for the moves he has made but his overall grade is a incomplete.
The good moves include drafting Vilardi, signing Iafallo and Brickley. Trading Gaborick for a slightly less washed up Phanuef. None of the rest of the moves made much of a difference either way. There has not been any really bad moves made by Blake but his biggest move of hiring Stevens needs more time to be fairly judged. Blake also so far has not trade high draft picks for bandaids.
The moves he makes this off season will go along way to fairly assess his true grade. My guess is his grade will go down because he will way over pay for Doughty and Stevens will probably be somewhat of a disappointment. I hope I am pleasantly surprised and have nothing to bitch about this time next year.

 

[DryIslandBartender]

Incomplete grade.

Kings17 pointed out Luc being in the background with final say on Hockey ops, you really can’t grade Blake, I think.

What’s interesting to me, is that the Kings fired a GM that is absolutely aces in building /constructing a roster that wins. Now, I don’t know what the plan is from the guys running the show, honestly.

I’ve long suspected that Beckerman fired DL because Luc convinced him that DL was going to start replenishing the farm by trading some core players out. Core players that sell tickets and AEG can’t have that.