JFTC:Brutal Recap of Last Season

[Sol]

Patience: The Summer of Restlessness


I disagree with the idea of giving DL more rope to hang himself when he was clearly lost.

Agree with a lot of what he says. The smear campaign that the Kings allowed to happen under Willie D is going to push away good free agents.

I don't think the Kings needed to be active in free agency at all either.

I am just surprised that Blake and Luc haven't went out of their way to deal with the real lame ducks on the Kings. Just surprising that Quick, Carter, Doughty, Kopitar sucked massive dong through the entire season and yet they allowed only Kovalchuk to take the fall?

I'm skeptical of Todd and generally skeptical of Blake.


I hope we can just say this was just inexperience and training wheel moments, but some of the shit that Blake and Luc have done are just flat out illogical.

DL made some dumb ass moves towards the end. But you knew he had a plan, regardless how stupid it was.

I still haven't seen if Blake has a direct plan.

Click to read more...

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

The Kings are saving their draft picks and got a bunch of good quality assets in moving Muzzin. They have pretty much admitted the team is rebuilding. How is it that you can’t see what the plan is from this?

You can’t force other teams to take on bad contracts, unless you give up something worthwhile, like Toronto did in giving up a 1st to get out of the Marleau contract (who has only one year remaining on his contract).

 

[Lt Dan]

The Kings are saving their draft picks and got a bunch of good quality assets in moving Muzzin. They have pretty much admitted the team is rebuilding. How is it that you can’t see what the plan is from this?

You can’t force other teams to take on bad contracts, unless you give up something worthwhile, like Toronto did in giving up a 1st to get out of the Marleau contract (who has only one year remaining on his contract).

Especially when the players the OP named are at their lowest value ever.
Remember that Tor had to give up a 1st for someone to take Marleau

If Carter and quick bounce back in a big way, they will be moved

 

[tomd]

Blake and Luc are the hockey equivalent of Magic and Pelinka...borderline (if not outright) incompetence at the highest levels. Doing a rebuild correctly takes a really smart management team and I've seen no evidence that either are up to the task...far from it in fact.

 

[Sol]

The Kings are saving their draft picks and got a bunch of good quality assets in moving Muzzin. They have pretty much admitted the team is rebuilding. How is it that you can’t see what the plan is from this?

You can’t force other teams to take on bad contracts, unless you give up something worthwhile, like Toronto did in giving up a 1st to get out of the Marleau contract (who has only one year remaining on his contract).

So trading Muzzin and drafting is a sign of a rebuild?

From what I saw gutting the team is how rebuilding goes. The contracts aren't even awful to the point they're untradeable. The contracts players signed during FA were insane.

I don't think they're untradeable. The Kings haven't had the balls to trade any one of their core players yet. Unless people consider Muzzin a core player.


Let's give credit to the scouts who drafted very well this offseason but let's not forget the brass that for no reason gave Stevens head coach and then fired him for the worst coach alive.

You can say maybe they have a bit of a plan now but that's only recent, there is many of signs of ineptitude however.

 

[Lt Dan]

From what I saw gutting the team is how rebuilding goes. The contracts aren't even awful to the point they're untradeable.

How do you know this?

Do you think people are lining up to take on 36 year Kovalchuk for 6.25M for 2 more year on an over 25 contract?
or a 34 Carter for 3 more years at 5.27 with a cap recapture penalty contract where it is rumored he may retired if traded?

 

[KINGS17]

My favorite part...

But something much deeper was happening within the Kings organization. While Kings management leaked the “entitlement” angle to the local media as a cover-up for such poor play on the ice and ineptitude behind the bench, they wound up morphing into something I have yet to define. Kind of something between “snake oil salesmen” and “entitled.” Maybe an “entitled snake oil salesmen.” Let me take that down a notch for sensitive fans who love Rob Blake and Luc Robitaille because, after all, they delivered all of those Kings championships all by themselves back in the day. Oh wait, they both went to other franchises to win their Cups. Never mind.

...describes Robitaille quite well.

 

[Choralone]

I still don't understand why anyone thought we were going to make some sort of splash in free agency, or why we should. That's a positive for Blake as far as I'm concerned, not a negative.

Also, I find it funny when Blake and Luc get the double whammy for hiring, then firing, Stevens. If Stevens wasn't the right hire, at least they fired him. Or, if he was the right hire, then blame them for firing him. But it can't be both....

 

[Axl Rhoadz]

I still wholeheartedly believe that the real reason DL was fired was because he refused to let Sutter go. I'm sure we will never know the truth, but firing DL and replacing him with a guy who has zero experience (and hated by many Kings fans) just never made sense to me.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

Agree with this article very much. I will never love Luc and Blake. It just is what it is.

This franchise is in dire straits. Putting together a couple nice prospects is good, but ultimately a small part of the process.

This team has no direction, no identity, and no culture. Bad contracts everywhere. No one wants to be traded here. No one wants to sign here. Went from hero to zero in less than half a decade. Astounding.

And the lowest point is yet to come. Just wait until the Kings CBO Kopitar in 22/23.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

The organization was already in dire straits before the management change. I guess Luc and Blake staged that trash can incident to block Sutter out of the locker room, and they forced Lombardi to draft poorly and trade a bunch of picks for rentals.

The Kings were doing just fine, eh?

 

[HeadInjury]

Aside from the coaching hires, I don't have much in the way of complaints in terms of what Luc and Blake have done. They have held on to drafts picks, and acquired some extra picks, and seem to be drafting well. They've held on to young players and prospects. They've done a pretty decent job of signing college players. They aren't rushing young players into the NHL to fill some obvious gaps.

Pretty much doing everything they should be doing. The WD hire was bad, but if hiring the wrong "interim" coach is the big criticism, I can live with that. If the Stevens hire was wrong, and it was, my understanding was he had been promised he'd be the next head coach and I'm not going to get on a brand new GM for refusing to renege on that promise as his first decision on the job.

 

[Lt Dan]

I still wholeheartedly believe that the real reason DL was fired was because he refused to let Sutter go. I'm sure we will never know the truth, but firing DL and replacing him with a guy who has zero experience (and hated by many Kings fans) just never made sense to me.

You are saying that Stevens had zero experience?

Stevens was the coach of the phantoms who won the calder cup and then the head coach of the Flyers from October 22, 2006 – December 4, 2009

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

So trading Muzzin and drafting is a sign of a rebuild?

From what I saw gutting the team is how rebuilding goes. The contracts aren't even awful to the point they're untradeable. The contracts players signed during FA were insane.

I don't think they're untradeable. The Kings haven't had the balls to trade any one of their core players yet. Unless people consider Muzzin a core player.


Let's give credit to the scouts who drafted very well this offseason but let's not forget the brass that for no reason gave Stevens head coach and then fired him for the worst coach alive.

You can say maybe they have a bit of a plan now but that's only recent, there is many of signs of ineptitude however.

Buddy, they just had 10 selections in the 2019 draft. How did they get those extra picks, magic?

Everyone graded their draft an A and their prospect pool, which was top 10 before that, is arguably top 5 now.

There are a lot of reasons to dislike Blake and Luc but you are picking the one beautifully grown tree and pissing on it when there are 10 perfectly good fire hydrants right there for the taking.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Agree with this article very much. I will never love Luc and Blake. It just is what it is.

This franchise is in dire straits. Putting together a couple nice prospects is good, but ultimately a small part of the process.

This team has no direction, no identity, and no culture. Bad contracts everywhere. No one wants to be traded here. No one wants to sign here. Went from hero to zero in less than half a decade. Astounding.

And the lowest point is yet to come. Just wait until the Kings CBO Kopitar in 22/23.

On one hand, I totally agree with the boldfaced as that was my comment all year last year.

On the other...

Aside from the coaching hires, I don't have much in the way of complaints in terms of what Luc and Blake have done. They have held on to drafts picks, and acquired some extra picks, and seem to be drafting well. They've held on to young players and prospects. They've done a pretty decent job of signing college players. They aren't rushing young players into the NHL to fill some obvious gaps.

Pretty much doing everything they should be doing. The WD hire was bad, but if hiring the wrong "interim" coach is the big criticism, I can live with that. If the Stevens hire was wrong, and it was, my understanding was he had been promised he'd be the next head coach and I'm not going to get on a brand new GM for refusing to renege on that promise as his first decision on the job.

I have a hard time blaming Blake at this point based on a few things. He's shown he's quick to act on his mistakes. Yes, he makes them in the first place--but turned cammalleri into jokinen but he has no problem with sunk cost fallacy imo.

He reacted completely appropriately to the organizational about-face that was last season. 2018-2019 is the season that gave him FULL permission to do what needed to be done.

I think it's appropriate to FULLY judge him for what happens from this season on, as it's now the stamp on his team. Full season with his hires, players to some degree etc, after trying to correct for the disaster he was left behind, arguably the biggest scorched-earth wasteland in the NHL for any GM to walk into.

I think he's proven to be reactive, thoughtful, and open-minded as evidenced in the organization's draft picks (Europe and skill allllll ooooover) and college signings. I think he's proven to be at least aware of the cultural issues and has sought to address them from the ground up--Turcotte and Bjornfot--as well as from the management down--McLellan and co. I have no doubt malcontents this year will be jettisoned. But I'm also thinking the reason some guys are around is to recoup value so they aren't traded at rock bottom value.

I DONT think he's proven to have much of a long-term vision though...yet.

 

[BigKing]

I agree with the "corporate doublespeak" message of the article as this was evident the day DL was fired with many of us saying as much in the thread on the subject. Two company men were put in to replace the more autonomous Lombardi and the bucking bronco that is Sutter.

The latter's time was up but I'm not so sure on the former. If Lombardi's time was up, however, is the right move to replace him with a first-time GM that will have to navigate a tricky cap situation along with a shallow prospect pool? Not if you are serious about trying to have a long-term contender v. milking the Cup glory as long as possible.

That was the plan. Do nothing except keep draft picks. Hope for an improvement with Sutter out and hopefully make the playoffs. Sign a flashy name in an attempt to still just make the playoffs. Then it all crashes down and they now come out with this "We knew we would have to do this sooner or later but it just came a season and a half early" bull shit? Oh boy.

So, basically, the plan was just to run this thing into the ground with all of our favorite Kings players left from the glory days except the ground appears much quicker than they thought. I don't trust a single thing Luc says and I feel Blake got the job because he is going to play ball with Luc and AEG. I do like the Muzzin trade and what seems like a commitment to a partial rebuild but I also realize it only happened because their hands were basically forced in the face of what could easily rank as the Kings worst season ever. So with that said, I don't trust Management to stick to a rebuild plan the second they feel like they are further along than they actually are. I think we have a reactionary GM and not a visionary one so, in that sense, what's the point of replacing Lombardi if you just get a guy who, I'm sorry, doesn't seem to have really done much of anything?

As for the rest of the article, there is no point wasting Panarin's time if you aren't going to sign him. They weren't spending money: period. It is popular on here to say that all the Kovy signing did was cost money, but it isn't our money. AEG's ROI on Kovy is horrific so why allow Blake to spend more, especially when there is already a lot of dollars going out the door on this team.

Really though, the Kings never do well with UFAs anyways. Kovy only came here because Robbie was cool with going three years on the deal. The Willie D saga isn't going to do anything for future free agents since the only way the Kings get them is to overpay to begin with.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

God damn that article is whiny. Crying over Ben f***ing Hutton? Seriously? Complaints that the management actually acknowledges the on-ice (and apparently off-ice) apathy?

The one good point is acknowledging the weird-ass Kovalchuk smear campaign but even then it talks about how that's going to stop UFAs from coming here...give me a break. UFAs have never come here. It's not going to start now. Can't blame that on Blake. And frankly, the Panarin point is flat-out wrong, given it was reported he was interested in the Kings and wanted to meet with us but we didn't want to meet with him. I cannot for the life of my understand that the author is willing to die on the sword of "bawww we aren't signing any UFAs" given the garbage contracts handed out this offseason and our current team situation.

I'm usually a big JFTC fan. There are plenty of things to criticize. Not signing UFAs is really, really the wrong one.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Every summer, Kings fans complain about missing out on signing every free agent, and when the Kings do dip into the market and sign a player who addresses a perceived need, they complain about that signing.

I guess that’s similar to the doublespeak they lambast management for.

 

[crassbonanza]

Prior to Blake being hired the top prospects were LaDue, Kempe, Gravel, Amadio, Mersch, Brodz, Clague, Watson, Wagner and MacDermid.
In 3 drafts since then Blake has a pool that includes Vilardi, Kupari, Turcotte, JAD, Thomas, Anderson, Kalieyev, Phillips, Bjorfoot and Sodergran. He has also filled in the gap between the core and these prospects with college free agents very well, guys like Iafallo and Petersen have already made impacts and Brickley and Rempal still have potential. The Kings currently have a borderline top 5 prospect pool filled with potential.

Whether Blake and co. have a plan or not, the Kings are doing a fantastic job stocking the pipeline.

 

[Choralone]

You are saying that Stevens had zero experience?

Stevens was the coach of the phantoms who won the calder cup and then the head coach of the Flyers from October 22, 2006 – December 4, 2009

He was referring to Dean's replacement (Blake).

 

[KingsFan7824]

The contracts aren't even awful to the point they're untradeable. The contracts players signed during FA were insane.

I don't think they're untradeable. The Kings haven't had the balls to trade any one of their core players yet. Unless people consider Muzzin a core player.

Go around the league. Find the 30+ year old unproductive player with at least term, if not also significant cap hit, that gets traded. There might be a couple out there. Pominville got traded at 35, and I believe at his full cap hit for a couple years, but Scandella had to go with him, and it was back to Buffalo, where Pominville had spent his entire career before a couple years in Minnesota. That's one problem the Kings have, nobody really has any emotional ties anywhere else. Quick, career King, his Cup wins mean nothing anywhere except LA. Carter, not going back to Columbus, and I'm not sure the Flyers would've been interested. Kopitar, Brown, Doughty, all career Kings. Kovalchuk, the Thrashers no longer exist, and the Devils aren't taking him back.

Signing UFA's to stupid contracts, and trading assets, are two different things. Maybe you're ok with taking no assets back, just finally seeing the old core get out, but the guys that we all want to see gone are older than most of the UFA's that get decent money. This time 2 years ago, after the Kings had long shown that they were no longer a quality team, Carter was already 32, with 5 years on the contract. How many players around the league are traded in that scenario? Pominville had 2 years left when Buffalo got him back. Today, Kessel is not as old as Carter was 2 years ago, and has fewer years left on his contract. Carter had to be dealt in 2016, if not 2015, and even then, we're talking 6 or 7 years of term left. That's a giant investment, and that's when Carter was still good, so you would've expected actual assets in return. However, Lombardi was going for it in 2015 and 2016, so there's no chance of Carter being traded then.

 

[Bandit]

I keep reading the title as "Jesus Tiddy f***ing Christ", which funnily enough sums up last year quite succinctly.

 

[Fishhead]

I'm not the biggest fan of Luc in the front office, but whining about Blake right now is silly. At this point, 2 years into DLs reign, the team sucked, he signed some bridge guys, traded for assets, and just drafted Doughty. Blake's following a similar pattern, except he's burdened with crap that was done to extend the window.

The Kovy signing was junk. Outside of that any complaining is seriously premature.

One thing Blake isn't, though, is incompetent. League wide people talk about how detailed and sharp he is, and he's a quick learner.

It took DL 6 years to win and that's coming into a better situation. Blake at least deserves a shot. This is whiny stuff as bad as when Lubo was traded. I remember the backstabber comments and how players wouldn't want to come here, etc. We would laugh at those comments now.

They deserve a little patience.

 

[Axl Rhoadz]

You are saying that Stevens had zero experience?

Stevens was the coach of the phantoms who won the calder cup and then the head coach of the Flyers from October 22, 2006 – December 4, 2009

Since when did Stevens replace DL? I was referring to Blake.

 

[KINGS17]

Every summer, Kings fans complain about missing out on signing every free agent, and when the Kings do dip into the market and sign a player who addresses a perceived need, they complain about that signing.

I guess that’s similar to the doublespeak they lambast management for.

The only UFAs I can think of who have served their intended purpose were Handzus, Scuderi, and Mitchell. Handzus and Mitchell were reclamation projects to be sure, but well chosen. Pittsburgh flat out couldn't afford Scuderi, and Dean was johnny on the spot having identified him as a good partner for Doughty.