He should have been traded as a pending UFA. I argued for that for a full year before he signed his extension because it was clear to me (and several others) that the Cup window had closed when they missed the playoffs in 2015. Others felt that they deserved another run, and there were a ton of civil and uncivil discussions here and elsewhere at that time.
So anywhere from the end of the 14-15 season(his worst season up to that point), or as the team had already traded for Lucic and an old Lecavalier, and was near the top of the standings, and clearly in win now mode? There simply wasn't a real opportunity to trade him. DL gave up on that when he went all in on Lucic.
I agree.
Hard to see anyway that it was realistic to to trade Kopitar at that time, now Doughty before he signed is a different story.
They gave Quick a 10 year deal days after winning the Conn Smythe. They gave Brown a big deal after a lackluster 2013 playoff, but based on what he did in the 2012 playoffs. They gave Kopitar his big deal. They weren't going to not sign Doughty if he wanted to stay. Call it bad management in all 4 cases, but they weren't going to say no to Doughty if he said yes. Not when they've already made the 3 previous mistakes. They were all going to get the Cup contracts. Those 4 specifically. Baked in the cake.
Again, we are making value judgments. Precedent does not tell the entire story.
And why shouldn't we want a visionary GM who makes difficult but beneficial decisions for the longterm health of the franchise? Isn't that why we're in this mess to begin with? Lombardi's poor foresight and insistence on chasing more Cups?
"Well, everyone else is doing it," is such plebeian justification for a bad contract.
DL messed up his rebuild, and had to turn to his friend off the farm, and lucking into Carter being unhappy in Columbus. If even one of those two things don't happen, they don't win in 2012, and DL is gone, because his rebuild was not working.
And what value has keeping Kopitar brought the Kings? Two playoff-less seasons and a first round sweep.
I don't dispute that a Kopitar trade in 2015 would have been absolutely shocking to the hockey world at large. I also agree it's probably unreasonable to expect any GM to make that decision.
But it was still the right thing to do.
It would've been the right thing to do. The right thing to do is also trading Quick in June 2012, not give him a 10 year contract.
Jason Arnott was a #1 C traded 2 years after leading the devils to a cup at around his 8th year in the league.
That's true. The Devils also ended up tied with the Kings in points that year. It sucks that the Kings weren't worse in 15-16, as that's the only chance there was to get rid of him. Although still unlikely, because Kopitar was a home grown guy, who went through all the bad times leading up to winning. He's a face of the franchise. Arnott was a Devil for 3 full seasons, and about half of two other ones in total. Again, emotional management on the part of the Kings.
Every decision made by a GM includes an opportunity cost. Most of the posts here went right back to ignoring that aspect of re-signing Kopitar to his 3rd contract, not trading Carter, etc.
As
@bland pointed out,
it was obvious to some the run was over in the summer of 2015, and this core as a whole would not make another run.
I think that is foresight, and if you are confident that was the case, then you can conceive some of the moves that were discussed.
Except DL. He went all in. We want the Kings to let go of the past, but we never do. There was zero chance Kopitar was being traded in the summer of 2015(DL made sure of that), and the team was too good(in the regular season) to trade him by the 2016 deadline.
what sucks is the Hawks have one more cup and are STILL in a better shape than the Kings...
this speaks more about the management we HAD and HAVE than the roster itself
That's true, and it started in 2006. DL did not do a good rebuild. His desperate move to get Richards was not working, which was on top of the Penner trade, which also wasn't working. It's amazing that they won with all the poor moves made between 2006 and 2011. The Kings were middle of the pack in 2012, and got stupidly hot for a while. That's why nothing DL built was sustainable.
Ryan Johansen, along with multiple other assets from Columbus, is one of the possibilities I suggested. I had other suggestions, but this is your go-to line of reasoning in which you always fail to mention the additional assets as if I wanted to see Kopitar traded for Johansen straight up. As I said, intellectually dishonest.
You're assuming that to make it a better trade for the Kings. What if they don't get multiple other assets from Columbus? They ended up as the 4th worst team in the league in 15-16, after being in the bottom 10 in 14-15. Why would they give you other assets on top of Johansen, for an older soon to be UFA?
It's always amazing when people mention the SC's as some kind of justification when almost all the terrible moves and signings were made post SC.
Also funny how we use the SC's as justification for what happened between 2006 and 2011. Missing twice on Giroux. Missing on a #4 pick. Trading the best prospect in the league, a solid 23 year old, and two 1st rd picks before they ever got out of the 1st round. Fired two head coaches. Brought in a friend of the GM, who was literally on a farm, in a please save my job for me hire. This grand 5 year vision from DL, with all his boxes, had the Kings 13th overall in the year they were expected to win. That's not quality management, and it's only justified and rationalized because they found a way to eventually win. Almost like they won in spite of poor leadership at the top. Thankfully that roster was able to interfere with everyone defensively, because they lacked a lot of talent.
