Speculation: LA Kings Offseason Thread

[Trash Panda]

His criteria is very weird. Players 22 and younger are eligible, and if that's the case if Byfield, Clarke, Spence, Kaliyev and Bjornfot round out your top 5 then surely they'd be ranked higher than 20th right? If you rank our pool by how we've voted our guys then I can absolutely see our pool being ranked so low.

It’s honestly disheartening to see how so much draft capital over the lean years has been turned into such a mediocre result.

Factor in the complete absence of a single goaltender passable for NHL talent, and it’s a fumble on par with even the most inept of all GM’s.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

Hockey has become an elite upper middle class youth sport. And the problem is a lot of hockey fans like it that way.

I was just arguing with someone on the main boards the other day who refused to believe that a larger talent pool would equate to an increase in talent at the top level. The NBA has directly benefited from growing the sport in Europe. Just look at the top stars in the NBA over the past twenty years versus the twenty years prior. Larger talent pool = better product. This is just basic mathematics.

If hockey could become more accessible to lower income athletes and shed its image of, to put it bluntly, a sport for rich white kids, things would get a lot better. Until then, the NHL is destined to float around as the 4th or 5th most popular league in NA.

 

[King'sPawn]

Hockey has become an elite upper middle class youth sport. And the problem is a lot of hockey fans like it that way.

I was just arguing with someone on the main boards the other day who refused to believe that a larger talent pool would equate to an increase in talent at the top level. The NBA has directly benefited from growing the sport in Europe. Just look at the top stars in the NBA over the past twenty years versus the twenty years prior. Larger talent pool = better product. This is just basic mathematics.

If hockey could become more accessible to lower income athletes and shed its image of, to put it bluntly, a sport for rich white kids, things would get a lot better. Until then, the NHL is destined to float around as the 4th or 5th most popular league in NA.

100% agree. Financial accessibility is the biggest blocker for growing the sport and opening paths for more talent.

 

[Choralone]

Wasn't Brent Burns following this lunatics diet?

Followed his grooming tips, too, it seems.

 

[Sol]

I don’t agree with the sport being for “white kids”. Seems like a lot of players have had some exposure to it through family. It’s not targeted to white kids. When you consider the NBA and soccer all you need is cleats, basketball shoes, and shin guards. I don’t see how hockey can compete with that when the gear requirement is so low and cheap. You can get good cleats for 70-100 dollars and shin guards for like 20? You have the full gear set for nearly the half of the price of a hockey stick.



I think you lose sight of facts when you go off on random tangents like that. I think the issue with the sport is just that it’s expensive. I don’t know how and if that will change. 300 for a stick is pretty nuts. Personally I don’t know what goes into the production of gear and if it’s expensive from a material standpoint. I can see skates being expensive but the sticks though seems ridiculous.

 

[Brodeur]

Hockey has become an elite upper middle class youth sport. And the problem is a lot of hockey fans like it that way.

I was just arguing with someone on the main boards the other day who refused to believe that a larger talent pool would equate to an increase in talent at the top level. The NBA has directly benefited from growing the sport in Europe. Just look at the top stars in the NBA over the past twenty years versus the twenty years prior. Larger talent pool = better product. This is just basic mathematics.

If hockey could become more accessible to lower income athletes and shed its image of, to put it bluntly, a sport for rich white kids, things would get a lot better. Until then, the NHL is destined to float around as the 4th or 5th most popular league in NA.

Standout defenseman E.J. Emery commits to UND

Jul. 23—GRAND FORKS — E.J. Emery didn't rush his recruitment. Although the 6-foot-3, 180-pound defenseman was eligible to commit on Aug. 1, 2022, he decided to put it off for a while. "I took the season to focus on winning games and trying to get better," said Emery, who played for the U.S...

sports.yahoo.com

I got excited when I saw that there was a kid on the USNTDP U18 team this season with Compton listed as his hometown. But he grew up mostly in Canada.

 

[SaltyElkHunter]

Its the McDavid crowd trying to justify scoring over winning, and SO many younger fans are getting lost in the plot that the coverage - broadcast, print and online - is already shifting to fit the new generations grasp of the game. Which I firmly believe is flash over substance, highlights over perseverance. The game is suffering while constantly trying to change to meet fans dumbed-down expectations.

Every generation thinks that the new one is clueless, its just part of aging. The difference here is that there is an electronic trail an equator long of nonsense and folks now are less interested in learning than being supported.

This post raised the bar

 

[Sol]

I think using McDavid in that frame of reference is pretty bad when you consider the fact he can win a game by himself. I understand the concept but using McDavid as the poster of what’s wrong with a scoring is king generation is misguided.

I think a better representation for your point would be Gaudreau. All flash and no substance.

 

[King'sPawn]

I don’t agree with the sport being for “white kids”. Seems like a lot of players have had some exposure to it through family. It’s not targeted to white kids. When you consider the NBA and soccer all you need is cleats, basketball shoes, and shin guards. I don’t see how hockey can compete with that when the gear requirement is so low and cheap. You can get good cleats for 70-100 dollars and shin guards for like 20? You have the full gear set for nearly the half of the price of a hockey stick.



I think you lose sight of facts when you go off on random tangents like that. I think the issue with the sport is just that it’s expensive. I don’t know how and if that will change. 300 for a stick is pretty nuts. Personally I don’t know what goes into the production of gear and if it’s expensive from a material standpoint. I can see skates being expensive but the sticks though seems ridiculous.

This may devolve the board because we're starting to cross into the threshold of socio-political talk. But we know the sport isn't "for white kids" explicitly.

People of color have been subjected to redlining and policies, historically, where they have had more hurdles to overcome than a white person, all other factors being equal.

Because of these economic gaps, it's historically been more difficult for black people to accumulate wealth. Because of the cost of hockey, black people just get filtered out at a greater volume.

I think, ultimately, we're saying the same thing. It's not explicit exclusion. But the high cost of gear, with a mixture of demographics historically excluded from accumulating wealth, has a huge factor in the growth of the sport.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

I don’t agree with the sport being for “white kids”. Seems like a lot of players have had some exposure to it through family. It’s not targeted to white kids. When you consider the NBA and soccer all you need is cleats, basketball shoes, and shin guards. I don’t see how hockey can compete with that when the gear requirement is so low and cheap. You can get good cleats for 70-100 dollars and shin guards for like 20? You have the full gear set for nearly the half of the price of a hockey stick.



I think you lose sight of facts when you go off on random tangents like that. I think the issue with the sport is just that it’s expensive. I don’t know how and if that will change. 300 for a stick is pretty nuts. Personally I don’t know what goes into the production of gear and if it’s expensive from a material standpoint. I can see skates being expensive but the sticks though seems ridiculous.

Of course hockey isn’t overtly “for” white kids. But by virtue of being so expensive, it has become a sport for white kids.

Like KP pointed out, the wealth distribution in North America still skews dramatically white. Therefore, expensive sports will attract more whites than other ethnicities. It’s simply a function of socioeconomics.

Hockey is the only major sport in North America dominated by whites. It’s also the most expensive to play as a youth. That’s not just a coincidence.

 

[tny760]

is it truly an offseason thread without an irrelevant argument about race

 

[lumbergh]

I really don’t understand how anyone with a pulse could watch a Kings game and infer that Drew isn’t head & shoulders better than any other defensemen on the Kings roster.

More often than not, he is the best defensemen on the ice for either team when he plays. Dude is criminally under rated and under appreciated due to his contract being 2-3M higher than it probably should be.

I don’t think that Doughty is head and shoulders better than Matt Roy. There’s a good case to be made that Matt Roy has been as valuable a defenseman outside of power play time as Drew Doughty. The power play time is important though.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I don’t think that Doughty is head and shoulders better than Matt Roy. There’s a good case to be made that Matt Roy has been as valuable a defenseman outside of power play time as Drew Doughty. The power play time is important though.

People are going to say this until Doughty retires.

There's nothing more undervalued than a true all situations #1 d-man eating 25+ minutes a game that looks unspectacular.

Roy gets completely smushed when he has to play up.

And I LOVE Roy and think he's generally undervalued, this just reeks of the old "Muzzin is the best dman on the Kings" stuff when everyone ignored that literally every dman was 5% better in possession and often a full GA/60 better with Doughty and worse, often FAR worse, with Muzzin.

part of the reason the depth dmen are often so good here is because Doughty pushes them down the lineup and gives them advantageous matchups and manageable minutes. It's a big reason for the success of teams like the Kings, Hawks, and Lightning and a big reason Erik karlsson can't win shit, he puts the rest of the team at a disadvantage in zone starts and competition.

 

[BigKing]

I was responding to the thing about the sport's popularity and I had in my response that it is still a "white" sport and it suffers from that when it comes to popularity.

It isn't cool. It has zero relevance to popular culture in the U.S. Check out the recording artists that performed at the last few All-Star Games:

2023 - Fall Out Boy (In 2023!!)
2022 - Machine Gun Kelly
2021 - N/A
2020 - Green Day
2019 - Bebe Rexha
2018 - KID ROCK (!!!)

The barrier of entry due to cost of equipment and ice time is always going to relegate it to the back of the line as far as popularity of the big sports go but, yes, it very much still has a marketing problem. There isn't someone making the sport cool enough to have people want to figure out how to overcome the cost issue.

We currently have a player that has been good enough to have people wonder if he is better than 99 and he could walk down the street in a majority of cities with an NHL team and not be bothered.

 

[Sol]

I do think it’s also a bit short sighted when you consider the fact that soccer in South America has always been a huge deal there so it’s going to take a super long time for hockey to even become a choice for peoples who have had their culture become ingrained with a sport. On my soccer teams there was parties and events for their teams they loved. I understand the whole “hockey is white” but yeah I think it’s going to take a loooot of time before hockey maybe just maybe seeps into other cultures. Back whenever we’d play basketball too there is a whole culture connected to basketball for African American community. Cost of entry for hockey definitely is higher and you can’t jsut go to your local park and play. No one in my highschool gave a shit about playing hockey. I personally think as decades pass maybe we will see less white people in hockey but I don’t think it’d be because of cost exactly. I just don’t think hockey will ever be popular enough to get cultures/races that have already embraced other sports that are easier to access. Hockey will never get as popular for that reason alone. Try going up against basketball and soccer. Very easy to access and people grow up around that. The same thing you can say about Canadians and white people in hockey. Almost every player I knew who was in hockey had some familial influence. I don’t think that will change anytime soon and I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with it.

Sometimes it be like that.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I mean, I love hockey and have played for 30 years--it's STILL hard for me to play--it's expensive and i have to drive at least 20 minutes to the nearest rink

I could walk a block and play basketball and soccer, arguably baseball et al

access IS an issue and that's before the socioeconomics enter the room

However @BigKing nails it re: marketing, the people in charge are stuck in 1950s television levels of marketing saavy, and I don't mean in the hip retro way.

 

[kingsholygrail]

I don't know why everyone's so obsessed with growing the sport. It's amazing that it's as big as it is. It's always been dominated by whites even when the league was populated by working class people. If you consider the regions where people can even play this game casually, they are predominantly white regions. It's the only winter sport that has reached the popularity that it has.

Accessibility wise, there's no cheap little league anymore. Not even soccer. If high schools stopped providing government subsidized leagues, every one of those sports would have the same problem as hockey for the kids.

 

[King'sPawn]

I don't know why everyone's so obsessed with growing the sport. It's amazing that it's as big as it is. It's always been dominated by whites even when the league was populated by working class people. If you consider the regions where people can even play this game casually, they are predominantly white regions. It's the only winter sport that has reached the popularity that it has.

Accessibility wise, there's no cheap little league anymore. Not even soccer. If high schools stopped providing government subsidized leagues, every one of those sports would have the same problem as hockey for the kids.

What's the timeline of when the sport was dominated by working class people? What years are you referring to?

And I want to grow the sport, because I love the sport. I want more people and different people to take it beyond where it's currently at. More fans lead to more revenue and a healthier league.

 

[mysterman2]

Football became America's sport because it is so easy to bet on in so many ways; fantasy, spreads, by quarters, squares, etc. And that happened way before the explosion of online betting.

To be fair though....Football is the best TV sport. You get to watch the play...have 30-45 seconds to talk about it before the next play. For people that know the sport you also get to debate which package they should be running, as well as debate o line vs dline. Back in the day they had QB1 which was the ultimate in sportsbar entertainment. That format could not work with any other sport but for football was massively entertaining.

Buzztime Fantasy Football: Fun Game, Even When You're Not Buzzed

A couple of weeks ago, I got the chance to play Buzztime Fantasy Football. If you’ve never played it at your local watering hole or seen it in real life before, it’s much like the trivia games you’re used to seeing at sports bars and restaurants...

bleacherreport.com

 

[mysterman2]

Football became America's sport because it is so easy to bet on in so many ways; fantasy, spreads, by quarters, squares, etc. And that happened way before the explosion of online betting.

I had the most fun ever betting on football in Vegas for last years playoffs. The Prop bets were far more entertaining than straight bets. Getting odds for who would score the first td or even just would that player score a td was massively entertaining. We are going back this year specifically for the prop bets- between those and being able to live bet...nothing is better than football season in vegas. The Circa sports book is like football gamblers heavan.

Football became America's sport because it is so easy to bet on in so many ways; fantasy, spreads, by quarters, squares, etc. And that happened way before the explosion of online betting.

I had the most fun ever betting on football in Vegas for last years playoffs. The Prop bets were far more entertaining than straight bets. Getting odds for who would score the first td or even just would that player score a td was massively entertaining. We are going back this year specifically for the prop bets- between those and being able to live bet...nothing is better than football season in vegas. The Circa sports book is like football gamblers heavan.

 

[lumbergh]

People are going to say this until Doughty retires.

There's nothing more undervalued than a true all situations #1 d-man eating 25+ minutes a game that looks unspectacular.

Roy gets completely smushed when he has to play up.

And I LOVE Roy and think he's generally undervalued, this just reeks of the old "Muzzin is the best dman on the Kings" stuff when everyone ignored that literally every dman was 5% better in possession and often a full GA/60 better with Doughty and worse, often FAR worse, with Muzzin.

part of the reason the depth dmen are often so good here is because Doughty pushes them down the lineup and gives them advantageous matchups and manageable minutes. It's a big reason for the success of teams like the Kings, Hawks, and Lightning and a big reason Erik karlsson can't win shit, he puts the rest of the team at a disadvantage in zone starts and competition.

The point about the quality of competition is fair, but it's hard to overlook the fact that Matt Roy has had the best total even strength GF% (54%) amongst regular defensemen on the Kings for the past three seasons. If Roy didn't have to spend 3/4 of last season next to Sean Durzi, the advantage would be even greater. I'm sure bland is going to tell me stats don't mean squat.

I will concede that Doughty looks better than Roy on the ice, but the end results keep pointing to how effective Roy is at what he does. He's the anti-Doughty, no flash, no twirling sticks, no trash talking.

It's cool. Doughty is great. I love the guy. Roy is just sneaky good.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

The point about the quality of competition is fair, but it's hard to overlook the fact that Matt Roy has had the best total even strength GF% (54%) amongst regular defensemen on the Kings for the past three seasons. If Roy didn't have to spend 3/4 of last season next to Sean Durzi, the advantage would be even greater. I'm sure bland is going to tell me stats don't mean squat.

I will concede that Doughty looks better than Roy on the ice, but the end results keep pointing to how effective Roy is at what he does. He's the anti-Doughty, no flash, no twirling sticks, no trash talking.

It's cool. Doughty is great. I love the guy. Roy is just sneaky good.

I agree they're both awesome and Roy is typically under the radar

I just think their deployment matters, and Roy isn't a #1 dman like Drew. Relative to role, he's one of the best in the league.

 

[Sol]

What's the timeline of when the sport was dominated by working class people? What years are you referring to?

And I want to grow the sport, because I love the sport. I want more people and different people to take it beyond where it's currently at. More fans lead to more revenue and a healthier league.

I think there’s nothing wrong with growing the sport I just think there’s a lot of truth to colder climates embracing hockey more where people can go and skate on frozen ponds. I think we all want the sport to grow but I do think there’s definitely some limitations that hockey faces around the non-white community that I don’t think will change any time soon. I think there’s far more prevalent sports ingrained with other cultures that hockey won’t be able to chip away at.

Who knows though. It’d be cool for other cultures to embrace hockey, and ease of access, and somehow make a way for gear to be cheaper. I’m cool with the way hockey is right now though because I know hockey faces very unique limitations.

 

[kingsfan28]

Local media was so upset when they saw a ton of surfers out on the waves this morning while they were talking about the tropical storm. lol

Some of those guys out there were so bad and had no business being out there at all. During a live shot , they showed a guy go face first into the sand after failing to get to his feet.
" Remember folks, these guys are expert and experienced surfers out there... this is no place for the novices"

It did get scetchy in the afternoon when the wind went for offshore to onshore in about a minute and started blowing about 40 mph. Cleared out the lineup in about 3 min as everyone ran for cover.

LT.Dan was nowhere to be seen.

 

[King'sPawn]

I think there’s nothing wrong with growing the sport I just think there’s a lot of truth to colder climates embracing hockey more where people can go and skate on frozen ponds. I think we all want the sport to grow but I do think there’s definitely some limitations that hockey faces around the non-white community that I don’t think will change any time soon. I think there’s far more prevalent sports ingrained with other cultures that hockey won’t be able to chip away at.

Who knows though. It’d be cool for other cultures to embrace hockey, and ease of access, and somehow make a way for gear to be cheaper. I’m cool with the way hockey is right now though because I know hockey faces very unique limitations.

I 100% agree. There are definite limitations, and yes, there are other reasonable explanations that can be a blocker for non-whites to learn the sport.

I just think it's important to recognize why the game is in its current state, for better or worse. And it's a foundation for my own rhetoric about growing the sport, being more inclusionary, etc. It's because in the past, with implicit and explicit actions, it hasn't always been that way.

But to echo BigKing and RJ, the league has also not been very good with marketing. Having superstars already going to bigger markets with a rich history (McDavid to Edmonton, Bedard with Chicago, Matthews with Toronto, and Crosby with Pittsburgh) have also played a major part. That's just been unfortunate luck.