News Article: Interesting NBC Interview with Boston Bruins Fan, Dean Lombardi

[Telos]

Dean Lombardi drops a bit of a bombshell in a wide ranging interview with Fred Roggin, revealing that the Kings were not his first pick when he took over the team in 2006. Even though he grew up in Boston and wanted to take over the Bruins, with whom he had interviewed, a few key ingredients shifted his thinking towards Los Angeles, including none other than Tim Leiweke.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/sports/Dean-Lombardi-Talks-LA-and-Hockey-216388601.html

Nice little candid interview with Dean. He talks about how LA could be a hockey market in the future with more winning, and goes over how he went about deciding on his coaching change during the 2012 season and a little behind the scenes with Sutter keeping his promise to his son which forced Dean to fire Murray early.

A bit of a surprise was Dean's candidness about getting the job in LA. He is a Boston Bruins fan and apparently he really wanted the GM position in Boston. It took Leiweke turning his wife against him and Anschutz going all in financially with the team to convince him over, as well as the thrill of winning a franchise's first championship versus one of many for a storied one. Essentially building his own story and becoming a legend with a new franchise versus just another chapter. Good stuff.

Click to read more...

 

[driller1]

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/sports/Dean-Lombardi-Talks-LA-and-Hockey-216388601.html


A bit of a surprise was Dean's candidness about getting the job in LA. He is a Boston Bruins fan and apparently he really wanted the GM position in Boston. It took Leiweke turning his wife against him and Anschutz going all in financially with the team to convince him over, as well as the thrill of winning a franchise's first championship versus one of many for a storied one. Essentially building his own story and becoming a legend with a new franchise versus just another chapter. Good stuff.

"It was the wife..."

Haha..... Thank you Mrs Lombardi!

 

[lumbergh]

I'd love to see the entire interview. I hope it gets posted online at some point.

 

[Model62]

Essentially building his own story and becoming a legend with a new franchise versus just another chapter.

And yet he was 12th in GM of the Year balloting (behind the Columbus dude who was fired mid-year) the season following his legendary first SC championship.

Weird.

 

[Reclamation Project]

Essentially building his own story and becoming a legend with a new franchise versus just another chapter.

And yet he was 12th in GM of the Year balloting (behind the Columbus dude who was fired mid-year) the season following his legendary first SC championship.

Weird.

Don't get me started on that...

 

[fyrescorp]

I always like Fred Roggin. He definitely walks the walk. I see him at numerous games with his family.

 

[Primakov!]

So you got Dean Lombardi who is a member of the Kings who initially wanted to be a Boston Bruin, and Milan Lucic is a Bruin who originally was pulling to be a Los Angeles Kings player.

Lucic was so devastated at not being drafted by the Kings that he didn't even hear his name get called a few picks later by Boston.

"I remember waking up that morning knowing what teams were interested, but didn't know where I was going to go," Boston Bruins forward Milan Lucic told NHL.com. "The teams I thought were most interested were Los Angeles and Nashville, but I ended up [in Boston]."

Lucic, a native of Vancouver, had about 17 family members supporting him at General Motors Place. He recalled having brunch with his agent at 11 a.m. that morning before heading over for the draft, which started at 1 p.m. local time.

"To be perfectly honest, what I remember most is the Kings having the 48th pick and they took a kid named Joey Ryan in the spot where I thought I would go," Lucic said. "When I didn't go, I didn't really pay attention after that, and then, all of a sudden, my parents and grandparents heard my name called. After all that… I never even heard my name."

Link

 

[kingsfan28]

So you got Dean Lombardi who is a member of the Kings who initially wanted to be a Boston Bruin, and Milan Lucic is a Bruin who originally was pulling to be a Los Angeles Kings player.

Lucic was so devastated at not being drafted by the Kings that he didn't even hear his name get called a few picks later by Boston.



Link

You can thank our genius head scout at the time Al Murray for passing on him. He was relived of his duties a few months later.

 

[Sam]

You can thank our genius head scout at the time Al Murray for passing on him. He was relived of his duties a few months later.

Actually that was Lombardi's doing, according to Al Murray.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/Pick+best+player+trade+need/8596037/story.html

"If you just take the best player, things usually work out for you," Al Murray, director of scouting for the Tampa Bay Lightning, said. "If you need something, I've always said you can trade players for what you need. But if you try to force by position, then you wind up with some players that might not be good enough for you and then they're not good enough for anybody else to want them either."

Murray speaks from experience. In 2006, he was scouting with the Los Angeles Kings and all set to select Milan Lucic with the 48th pick in the draft. But because the organization was thin on defence prospects, Murray said GM Dean Lombardi asked him to take the best available defenceman instead.

And so instead of ending up with a player who has appeared in more than 400 games and become the type of power forward that every team in the NHL would love to clone, the Kings chose Joey Ryan, who has yet to make his NHL debut and spent the last four seasons in the ECHL.

 

[Reclamation Project]

 

[SLang]

Oof.....

 

[Randart]

Roops...

Even the smartest man in the room sits on his brains at times... LOL!

Aside from this small fiasco most of Deans and the scouting dept., mgt. groups picks have been very good! Can't get them all spot on, eh!

Think we will ever see Joey in the pros? Hope he gets a shot at Manchester...

 

[kingsfan28]

Even the smartest man in the room sits on his brains at times... LOL!

Aside from this small fiasco most of Deans and the scouting dept., mgt. groups picks have been very good! Can't get them all spot on, eh!

Think we will ever see Joey in the pros? Hope he gets a shot at Manchester...

I'm willing to give him a pass on that years draft seeing how he'd only been on the job for a few months and really had no input on the scouting direction yet. This was still a Dave Taylor draft, with the exception of drafting Bernier, because in my opinion the Kings would never draft a goalie that high under Taylor.

 

[Sacha Baron Corbin]

So you got Dean Lombardi who is a member of the Kings who initially wanted to be a Boston Bruin, and Milan Lucic is a Bruin who originally was pulling to be a Los Angeles Kings player.

Lucic was so devastated at not being drafted by the Kings that he didn't even hear his name get called a few picks later by Boston.



Link

I'm sure the Kings wish they took him over Joey Ryan now

 

[zeppelin97]

Dean Lombardi is a bigger Lombardi fan than Boston Bruin fan. He takes a lot of pride in what he's accomplished.