The Kings made the playoffs by 5 points. It is well within reason to say that had 19 year old rookie Byfield (and the worthless players he spent most of last year with) had increased usage at the expense of PD and AK that the Kings probably miss the playoffs. Did you watch Brown and AA? Did you watch the Champagne line? AA is a one-dimensional mercenary, Brown was completely done, Vilardi makes Matt Greene look like McDavid, JAD is a AAAA player, Grundstrom and Kupari are 4th line guys in an ideal world. These are the guys you are increasing ice time for just for one kid, who himself was struggling, to say that couldn’t have swung the standings a few points, not sure I agree.
I don’t know where the great success and utter failure thing comes from.
Is the Kings making the playoffs while most of the high picks stagnated a massive success?
Would the Kings missing the playoffs while young players were given more ice time an utter failure?
I don’t think either thing is true, but I think you and a few others here, like I respect KP but to me there is a bit of wanting cake and wanting to eat it to with what Blake did as far as Danault and pushing back the youth. The Danault and VA moves very clearly were a big change in direction of the rebuild, one that people who I think are a bit married to prospects just refused to see. If you are happy with what you have with your young centers, you don’t sign a late 20’s C for $5m a year for 5 years(!!). That coupled with the position changes of 3 of those centers should have been a clear message to what they though. I can’t believe people still try and say that isn’t the case. I called it here to during the season when people like Hoven were saying the Kings weren’t going to make a big plunge in the summer and we’re committed to the youth.. The Fiala trade was another move that clearly showed the Kings are moving away from a potential core made up of the younger 1st round picks and more to a core of players in their primes mostly brought in from outside the organization. They will stick with QB and Clarke and hope they can be pieces but Vilardi, JAD and Turcotte who were all likely seen as big pieces are just not anymore. And they just traded two pieces that would have been top 5 prospects post 2022 draft to get Fiala. The rebuild is over.
The Kings are in a compete now window that cracked open last year and was completely blown open by trading a player like Faber for an in his prime semi-star player. Guys like QB and Clarke can still be expected to be important pieces of that, but they are going to have to prove themselves and develop on a stage where the team is also expected to win, it’s not going to be a training wheels development. It didn’t have to be that way with QB there was 50+ no pressure NHL games for the taking in 20-21 and the Kings chose to give that to Gabriel Vilardi instead of QB, a decision that obviously hurt the progression of QB.
For clarity, yes. I was completely okay with the Danault and Arvidsson acquisitions. However, my thoughts were much more in-depth beyond just blindly thinking it's great.
- The idea behind getting additional depth of two quality players like Danault and Arvidsson would be that the depth would properly be used. I have said since pre-season last year that Byfield really should be playing alongside Iafallo or Moore. I called them plug-and-play type of wingers, but a more specific definition is; they are wingers who largely play well in their role and help their linemates succeed while trying to play their game. You don't need a learning curve to play with them - they learn to play with you.
- With Byfield's size and hands, he would have been a perfect front-net presence on the powerplay.
- I advocated putting a rookie on each line, so they would have had an opportunity to play alongside veterans and learn from them.
- As mentioned when asked multiple times - if a player struggles, then lessen the responsibility. We saw what happened when Vilardi struggled - there was nobody to fall back upon it. Danault and Arvidsson was the remedy for that.
Unfortunately, almost none of the above was utilized. The top forward prospects were stowed into the bottom-6, McLellan overloaded on the top-6, and the scoring prospects had reduced opportunity in prime scoring roles, like the powerplay.
Yes, if the option was to put Byfield with AA and Brown and up their minutes, it would likely have worked out much worse, because Byfield isn't in a state to carry a line yet. Putting him with Iafallo or Moore on the left and some other RWer, and some powerplay time in front of the net, however, could have:
1. TRULY had a top-9 lineup, instead of overloading on the top-6
2. Had a reasonable likelihood of challenging for the playoffs
3. Accelerating the developmental path of the rookies (because in theory, Kaliyev would have also had a chance with Kopitar or Danault)
I understand at face value, it's easy to think we wanted to have our cake and eat it. But there were very specific parameters or an action plan of how this could have been executed, so I think you're either misremembering previous discussions or understating the degree of thought and effort put into why we supported the moves.
