Speculation: LA Kings News, Rumors, Roster Thread 2022-23 Season

[YP44]

This is the same org that didn't want Byfield in the AHL because he'd develop bad habits smoking everyone

What is Clarke in the OHL like? What does he get from defending 16 year olds harder? Going coast to coast playing pond hockey more?

This is a guy that needs ot use his brain to figure out systems, pro level puck support, how not to die when men are trying to kill you, NHL schemes, and strength and conditioning. There's nothing in junior for him but to piss away 40 games tooling kids a full tier or 2 below the tournament he just smoked.

I put a fair bit of stock into strength and conditioning. Right now Clarke is easy to push around in the NHL. Have him play top minutes in the AHL and work with strength and conditioning coaches there as well. LA trainers will still have his ear and be part of his development in the OHL. Strength is one of the reasons D used to take longer to develop, nothing wrong with Clarke being a man among boys for 40 games for me. Play his ass off, work his ass of, be bigger better stronger.

 

[King'sPawn]

I don't think LA will be winning anything more this year with Clarke than without. So makes more sense to have him in the OHL.

The org shouldn't be making individual developmental decisions based on the org's immediate success. They should be making decisions in the best interest of the individual player.

How does playing in the OHL against inferior competition benefit the player MORE than staying up in the NHL, working out with the pros, and getting a regular rotation of games? And if the OHL was in the player's best interest, why wasn't he sent down before?

 

[YP44]

The org shouldn't be making individual developmental decisions based on the org's immediate success. They should be making decisions in the best interest of the individual player.

How does playing in the OHL against inferior competition benefit the player MORE than staying up in the NHL, working out with the pros, and getting a regular rotation of games? And if the OHL was in the player's best interest, why wasn't he sent down before?

I think regular play and top minutes is valuable. even against teens.
Why not send him down before, because they did not have to and is it not good for a player to get a wholistic view of what they are striving for and what it takes to exceed and excel and that level?

 

[funky]

After thinking about it there are are a few reasons I am okay with Clarke going down

!. The log jam at RD on the Kings. Even if Walker is traded or waived still have Durzi to put back on his proper side and Spence ahead of him.

2. Gives him a bit more time to put on size. The kid is thin and I fear him pulling of a fancy move and getting pulverized by an NHL sized player.

3. saves a year on his ELC

4. Everyone expects him to dominate the OHL but lets face it, he didn't over impress in the NHL although I thought he looked okay and he didn't go down and dominate the AHL. The game I was at he took a lot of contact and they seemed to be going after him after the whistles in scrums. He did look better the next few games. Then he went to the WJC against kids and got butt pounded in his own zone and looked like a superstar in the offensive zone.


I love him as a prospect and I think he will be on next years team in a constant role. Let the kid go to the OHL and put on lots of miles in all the roles. Rumors are Barrie is going after Wright and want to make a Memorial Cup push.

The Kings will give him a list of things to work on. Hope he embraces it and comes back hungry and more NHL ready next year


Give the NHL time to Spence this year. Jettison some of the more expensive dead weight.

I am not a Durzi fan but I kinda want to see him and what he could do on a 10 game stint on his strong side with a defense first partner that can cover some of his deficiencies

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I think regular play and top minutes is valuable. even against teens.
Why not send him down before, because they did not have to and is it not good for a player to get a wholistic view of what they are striving for and what it takes to exceed and excel and that level?

That's optimistic, but ok.

Dude has been on like 7 hockey teams lately, between the OHL, europe, team canada after getting shafted twice, NHL, AHL, OHL again, and probably getting traded at the OHL deadline. And a random month pretty much 'off' with nothing but practice. Give the man some consistency and expectations instead of shuttling him to every eligible league in the land.

it's probably the best spot for him at this juncture but like I said above that's because of the shitshow at the pro level, can we at least not pretend this is some well thought out 4d chess?

 

[King'sPawn]

I think regular play and top minutes is valuable. even against teens.
Why not send him down before, because they did not have to and is it not good for a player to get a wholistic view of what they are striving for and what it takes to exceed and excel and that level?

So you think regular play and top minutes is valuable, but not valuable enough to send him down right away? You think it's more valuable to sit him, have him get a holistic view of what they want him to strive for, before they ship him off to play in two different roles in two different teams? They didn't even want to play him one game after his "conditioning stint" in the AHL to see how well he would apply it at the next level?

Can you cite ONE other example in which a team sat a prospect for a quarter of the season, not playing him, not assigning him to juniors... then halfway into the season assigning him to juniors?

Closest example I can find for any meaningful prospect is Maxime Comtois. He played 10 games in the NHL, which used up his ELC, but he was injured, then sent down to the QMJHL in late November: Ducks return forward Maxime Comtois to QMJHL Drummondville

There's thinking outside the box, then there's this.

 

[mysterman2]

After thinking about it there are are a few reasons I am okay with Clarke going down

!. The log jam at RD on the Kings. Even if Walker is traded or waived still have Durzi to put back on his proper side and Spence ahead of him.

2. Gives him a bit more time to put on size. The kid is thin and I fear him pulling of a fancy move and getting pulverized by an NHL sized player.

3. saves a year on his ELC

4. Everyone expects him to dominate the OHL but lets face it, he didn't over impress in the NHL although I thought he looked okay and he didn't go down and dominate the AHL. The game I was at he took a lot of contact and they seemed to be going after him after the whistles in scrums. He did look better the next few games. Then he went to the WJC against kids and got butt pounded in his own zone and looked like a superstar in the offensive zone.


I love him as a prospect and I think he will be on next years team in a constant role. Let the kid go to the OHL and put on lots of miles in all the roles. Rumors are Barrie is going after Wright and want to make a Memorial Cup push.

The Kings will give him a list of things to work on. Hope he embraces it and comes back hungry and more NHL ready next year


Give the NHL time to Spence this year. Jettison some of the more expensive dead weight.

I am not a Durzi fan but I kinda want to see him and what he could do on a 10 game stint on his strong side with a defense first partner that can cover some of his deficiencies

All valid points the main being Spence- older, more physically mature, looked solid in NHL play last season, Clearly top line AHL player as a youngster- if he cant get a sniff at regular NHL playing time why bother burning a season of Clarke?

 

[bland]

If you can't find a taker for Walker, you buy him out in the summer just to free up the spot. Cap hit would drop from $3 million for the last year of his deal down to just over $1 million for the next two years.

His full cap hit would still be on the books if he is waived and assigned to the Reign. Its a no brainer, so, I guess we should ink him into the Kings lineup for next season.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Like earlier, I think we all generally agree, but are talking around two different things;

Clarke going to junior at this point is generally ok--but we disagree on 'why' (it's actually good for him vs. better there than here given the roster clusterf***);

The reason Clarke is even in this situation is dumbass overcompensating roster management by Blake.

 

[bland]

Correct..if Spence cant


All valid points the main being Spence- older, more physically mature, looked solid in NHL play last season, Clearly top line AHL player as a youngster- if he cant get a sniff at regular NHL playing time why bother burning a season of Clarke?

But you need to have the foresight to make that call in the summer. Literally nothing changed, just cost the kid months of playing time at a crucial time in his development - all AFTER seeing how much the missed time due to Covid affected other prospects.

Its just asinine management.

 

[BigBrown]

I'm for Clarke going back to junior, if anyone should grab Walker's spot it should be Spence in my opinion.

What is questionable is having Clarke up with the big club until now instead of sending him back sooner. I don't think it's as big of a deal as some are making it but it is a bit strange, that's for sure.

 

[mysterman2]

But you need to have the foresight to make that call in the summer. Literally nothing changed, just cost the kid months of playing time at a crucial time in his development - all AFTER seeing how much the missed time due to Covid affected other prospects.

Its just asinine management.

Agreed...log jam of prospects and bad contracts wasnt the best scenario and seems like this possibility was never considered. As other mentioned- maybe the assumed an injury or two would be the solution?

 

[King'sPawn]

But you need to have the foresight to make that call in the summer. Literally nothing changed, just cost the kid months of playing time at a crucial time in his development - all AFTER seeing how much the missed time due to Covid affected other prospects.

Its just asinine management.

And they can't even say they didn't see it coming. They were asked at season's conclusion and the offseason what they were going to do with so many RHDs. They knew they were going to put some on LD, but there's just no apparent plan to make up for where some of these players appear to be struggling.

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

I still have yet to hear someone say WHY Clarke's time up is "WASTED" time......

 

[BigKing]

If you can't find a taker for Walker, you buy him out in the summer just to free up the spot. Cap hit would drop from $3 million for the last year of his deal down to just over $1 million for the next two years.

His full cap hit would still be on the books if he is waived and assigned to the Reign. Its a no brainer, so, I guess we should ink him into the Kings lineup for next season.

I said to waive him before the season started if you can't find a taker. Nice guy and it sucks that the injury happened but he was always a bridge player. From a prospect perspective, the RHD bridge was built much quicker than Blake "planned(?)" for and now he's sitting on a guy that has zero impact on the future of the organization from a playing perspective, is negatively impacting the future from a development perspective and is actually hurting the team on the ice at present.

 

[Schrute farms]

Clarke going down because we have Spence is totally reasonable.
Now not playing Spence (or even Bjornfot) is a whole other story. Not to mention the aforementioned last 3+ months of Clarke's usage (or lack thereof).

 

[deaderhead28]

Anyone else having issues posting replies when quoting others post and the reply you make is in the quote box itself? I am on the app.

 

[bland]

I said to waive him before the season started if you can't find a taker. Nice guy and it sucks that the injury happened but he was always a bridge player. From a prospect perspective, the RHD bridge was built much quicker than Blake "planned(?)" for and now he's sitting on a guy that has zero impact on the future of the organization from a playing perspective, is negatively impacting the future from a development perspective and is actually hurting the team on the ice at present.

And it isn't though he is a bad player either. Walker is perfectly fine on the third pair, its just that prospects aren't Pokémon to be collected. If you have Doughty, and Roy and Spence have out performed their draft spots, and Walker was a pleasant surprise, and you trade for Durzi, then you go out and use high picks on Grans/Faber/Clarke, you need to have a plan in place to manage them. Waiting to see how it shakes out is the absence of a plan.

And I think its very likely he traded the one that would make the biggest difference for yet another offensive winger.

 

[Fishhead]

Like earlier, I think we all generally agree, but are talking around two different things;

Clarke going to junior at this point is generally ok--but we disagree on 'why' (it's actually good for him vs. better there than here given the roster clusterf***);

The reason Clarke is even in this situation is dumbass overcompensating roster management by Blake.

Yeah, I don't think it's as useful for him down there as up, but that's just a keyboard warriors opinion.

I'm actually glad they didn't send him down right away. First, being around pros is infinitely valuable to him. He doesn't really need to hone his skills as much as he needs to see how pros eat, workout, approach practice, etc.

And second, being a Kings prospect, he would probably just get injured. At least if he's on the pro roster he's not going to get hit in the face by a stray puck on the bench.

 

[crassbonanza]

So let me get this straight. PDO correlates with a high points percentage, which is the mark of good teams. PDO is also a "stat trying to look at luck"? So team success is correlated with luck? PDO correlates with high points percentage. Year after year. Better than CorsiFor%. What's luck got to do with it? I'll say it again, PDO is not a measure of puck luck.

I really think you need to do some more research into PDO, there are numerous articles about it. All PDO is showing is the relationship between expected goals and actual goals. If a team is outperforming it's expected goals(significantly higher shooting/save percentage), they will have a high PDO. Some teams are naturally better, but the effect is not very large, which is why you typically see teams with high PDO's fall off the next season and teams with low PDO's show an increase the following season. Of course a team that is wildly outperforming the expected goals is going to have a high points percentage, PDO is trying to look at how much of a factor luck is playing into the high goal differential. If a team is being hemmed in constantly, you typically wouldn't expect them to have a positive goal differential.

What PDO reveals on an individual basis is the ability to elevate the play of all the players on the team on both ends of the ice. These players, Morgan Geekie, Daniel Sprong, and Brandon Tanev are part of the reason why the Kraken are doing well. You saw the difference Trent Frederic made last night. If you are looking for players that aren't flashy, don't have the giant contracts that come with big goal and point numbers, The role players that help teams win, PDO is a better way to do it than CorsiFor%, about the same as the best xGF% models.

PDO does not reveal that the ability to elevate the play of all the players on both ends of the ice, all it shows is how many goals have been scored in relation to puck possession. Morgan Geekie has the worst CF% on Seattle at 43.26%, whcih is a -8.87 CF% Rel. His SF % Rel is -5.90. When he is on the ice the team is heavily outshot, especially in relation to his teammates. However he has an 81.82 GF%. If you view PDO as a representation solely of skill, you are rewarding him for having horrible possession numbers. If he had that same GF%, but team average possession his PDO would be significantly lower. Again, due to the fact that PDO is trying to suss out puck luck, it is heavily reliant on expected goals to calculate the value.

You're right that GF% is the best. That's why I looked at both GF% and PDO. Both tell you Iafallo and Anderson are your unsung heroes of the team.

That's fair, if you are only interested in on ice production we can just go back to using +/-, which I am not totally against, but I agree with Sutter that you should use +/- Rel.

 

[funky]

But you need to have the foresight to make that call in the summer. Literally nothing changed, just cost the kid months of playing time at a crucial time in his development - all AFTER seeing how much the missed time due to Covid affected other prospects.

Its just asinine management.

I would actually argue this point somewhat.

We have a prospect that we know is undersized, possible attitude problems and has some defensive deficiencies and introduced him to the following:

1. A day in the life of a pro hockey player
2. Play with pros, practice with pros, live with pros - what it takes on and off the ice to be a pro
3. Health and nutrition experts, strength coached, skating coaches
4. Start learning the teams system, learning teammates habits on the ice, learning the prep work it takes
5. Playing in both the NHL and AHL - the actual speed of the game, size of the players, learning that the little pretty plays might just get you destroyed. Hockey at 2 whole new levels.

As of this point if he was in the OHL and on Barrie he would have played 33 games give or take a few extra games making team canada.

As of right now he has played 9 NHL games, 5 AHL games and 7 games at the WJC for a total of 21 games.

So we have basically only sacrificed 12 games at the jr level to get him that extra experience this year.

The stupid CHL rule that 19 year olds can only play in jr's or the NHL affests a lot of prospects. Seattle just took the same route with Shane Wright a #4 overall pick that could have went 1st overall. I am not saying this is the right route but the CHL does have a lot of NHL GM's balls in a vise over a long amount of time because of this rule.

In a perfect scenario with an open 3 [pairing spot Clarke may have stuck and looked great, it also may have Pejorative Slured his development. One does not know and we are left to speculate what the best option is. I have no idea one way or the other. I can get mad about it or I can press on, watch Byfield, Vilardi, Kaliyev and others hopefully progress on the NHL team in front of our eyes and hope that Spence gets a deserved shot or at the very least Durzi back on his proper side and see if it fixes some of the defensive gaffes

Hope Clarke goes to the Memorial Cup, gets MVP and comes in bigger, stronger and more mature next fall

 

[lumbergh]

I really think you need to do some more research into PDO, there are numerous articles about it. All PDO is showing is the relationship between expected goals and actual goals. If a team is outperforming it's expected goals(significantly higher shooting/save percentage), they will have a high PDO. Some teams are naturally better, but the effect is not very large, which is why you typically see teams with high PDO's fall off the next season and teams with low PDO's show an increase the following season. Of course a team that is wildly outperforming the expected goals is going to have a high points percentage, PDO is trying to look at how much of a factor luck is playing into the high goal differential. If a team is being hemmed in constantly, you typically wouldn't expect them to have a positive goal differential.



PDO does not reveal that the ability to elevate the play of all the players on both ends of the ice, all it shows is how many goals have been scored in relation to puck possession. Morgan Geekie has the worst CF% on Seattle at 43.26%, whcih is a -8.87 CF% Rel. His SF % Rel is -5.90. When he is on the ice the team is heavily outshot, especially in relation to his teammates. However he has an 81.82 GF%. If you view PDO as a representation solely of skill, you are rewarding him for having horrible possession numbers. If he had that same GF%, but team average possession his PDO would be significantly lower. Again, due to the fact that PDO is trying to suss out puck luck, it is heavily reliant on expected goals to calculate the value.




That's fair, if you are only interested in on ice production we can just go back to using +/-, which I am not totally against, but I agree with Sutter that you should use +/- Rel.

Well, I offer you, my friend, a peek beyond the conventional wisdom. Whether you choose to close your eyes for fear that conventional wisdom might be wrong it is up to you. You yourself offer examples of when that conventional wisdom is wrong, and repeatedly offer the explanation of "luck".

How strange that the PDO for the Tampa Bay Lightning is above 1.000 year after year? Must be lucky. Same with the Avalanche? Must be lucky. Sean Durzi's ES possession metrics are good, but PDO is way below 1.000 two years in a row? Must be unlucky why he gets scored on all the time. I'm sure he'll regress some day. Any time now.

 

[King'sPawn]

I think advanced stats are still in the relatively early stage of their lives, where application and interpretation still hasn't been done for long enough to weigh what things measure.

I understand that PDO is a measure of luck, per the original creator's intention. But that doesn't mean the interpretation can't evolve.

I think @lumbergh has put forth a compelling case that PDO is more than just luck. But I'm also not comfortable concluding how it should be interpreted in light of the new info.

 

[kilowatt]

I’m fine with Clarke being sent to the OHL, but what the hell was the plan? Did they want him to play 15 games in six months? If so… nailed it? Or were they hoping for an injury to force their hand?

Maybe there’s some financial aspect to this? We don’t think you’re ready for the NHL yet, but we’ll keep you up as long as we can to collect that NHL paycheck, so when the time comes for that second contract, don’t forget what we did?

 

[bland]

And they can't even say they didn't see it coming. They were asked at season's conclusion and the offseason what they were going to do with so many RHDs. They knew they were going to put some on LD, but there's just no apparent plan to make up for where some of these players appear to be struggling.

This is what really makes me question their basic ability to make decisions. Right shooting defensemen just don't get reps on the left side. Its exceedingly rare, you just don't see it in junior, college, internationally, the AHL and certainly not in the NHL.

Its not just those players themselves that need to learn how to adjust all their angles and reads, its how teammates play with them as well. Where to put passes, how to position themselves to receive breakouts, its all so rare that you are asking players to take an extra tick to think instead of reacting. In a game that's so fast now, that extra second really puts your team at a disadvantage and its all completely unnecessary.

Blake played the right side and nobody should know that better than him. If he is going to sign Danault and Arvidsson and deal for Fiala to avoid the usual slow boil associated with a rebuild, doesn't he question why his defense is so problematic?

So, let's say they do move on from Walker. Are they seriously planning on keeping Durzi on the left going forward? Could they seriously be planning on keeping Spence in the AHL again next year? Is Clarke already chiseled into the Reign lineup next season?

My biggest fear for this team is seeing Spence and Turcotte dealt to make a run now.