Speculation: LA Kings Offseason Thread

[Dog as Man]

Wait for that tough guy to become available as players are released or waivered. Otherwise I think we can limp it in. The goaltending situation is more in the front of mind for me.

 

[NikF]

Turns out Al Murray was probably not as bad of a scout as much as the Kings development sucked. He is probably the type that likes to swing for upside. You draft a lot of players you can't do much with and a few that hit really big. DL drafting regime was a lot more conservative in that regard I think. They wanted to consistently hit on players that could play Kings hockey and probably missed on a few far better upside players in the process. But they were hitting on those players that fit. The Kings got lucky that they hit on two star players with Murray's last draft, lucked out with Doughty as a lottery team and supplemented that with consistent good drafting under DL to fill out support pieces.

The biggest edge I give DL over Blake is that he understood the value of building a team with a specific style of play in mind and adding specific players that could carry out that style around his key pieces. DL knew there was value to be had in assembling the hard-nosed gritty identity with Stoll, Greene, Williams, Mitchell etc. Once you add enough players that fit your identity, you get more value out of them than other teams can. Soon enough nobody wanted to play the Kings because the roster was stacked with hard-nosed difficult to play against players. Chicago, a team as good if not better in that era, obviously had a different concept from size and grit, but the same advantage. Blake seems to be all over the place in that regard, nobody really knows what this team is trying to accomplish identity-wise, so any player you add, whether skilled, fast, big or gritty, doesn't benefit from fitting into an existing culture, because there is no clear one.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Seems pretty evident to me the team values center depth a lot more than anything, which is also something Dave Taylor often pursued, but failed at due to him being prone to acquire players who were made of fine china.

 

[johnjm22]

Turns out Al Murray was probably not as bad of a scout as much as the Kings development sucked.

I suspect it has less to do with development, and more to do with luck / randomness.

 

[raswilliam]

I think one thing people don’t realize is that bad shoulders at a young age means it will only get worse when you’re older. Bad shoulders at a young age are a sign of things to come.

Rob Blake had bad shoulders in College and thats why he perfected the hip check.

 

[Reaper45]

Seems pretty evident to me the team values center depth a lot more than anything, which is also something Dave Taylor often pursued, but failed at due to him being prone to acquire players who were made of fine china.

That and every center was the opposite of Blake’s centers. Big and slow.

 

[bland]

That and every center was the opposite of Blake’s centers. Big and slow.

Lots of GMs get all hot and bothered about a specific type of player, Taylor's was Keith Primeau

 

[bland]

Turns out Al Murray was probably not as bad of a scout as much as the Kings development sucked. He is probably the type that likes to swing for upside. You draft a lot of players you can't do much with and a few that hit really big. DL drafting regime was a lot more conservative in that regard I think. They wanted to consistently hit on players that could play Kings hockey and probably missed on a few far better upside players in the process. But they were hitting on those players that fit. The Kings got lucky that they hit on two star players with Murray's last draft, lucked out with Doughty as a lottery team and supplemented that with consistent good drafting under DL to fill out support pieces.

The biggest edge I give DL over Blake is that he understood the value of building a team with a specific style of play in mind and adding specific players that could carry out that style around his key pieces. DL knew there was value to be had in assembling the hard-nosed gritty identity with Stoll, Greene, Williams, Mitchell etc. Once you add enough players that fit your identity, you get more value out of them than other teams can. Soon enough nobody wanted to play the Kings because the roster was stacked with hard-nosed difficult to play against players. Chicago, a team as good if not better in that era, obviously had a different concept from size and grit, but the same advantage. Blake seems to be all over the place in that regard, nobody really knows what this team is trying to accomplish identity-wise, so any player you add, whether skilled, fast, big or gritty, doesn't benefit from fitting into an existing culture, because there is no clear one.

I think the most likely scenario isn't Dean building a specific type of hockey as much as it was an astute and unsympathetic acknowledgement of what his core young players have and didn't have. He gave them rope under Crawford, saw specific deficiencies and acted accordingly.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I suspect it has less to do with development, and more to do with luck / randomness.

We have literal decade + of evidence with almost exactly this exact development staff and a lot of what quite a few of us hypothesized is coming true right in front of our eyes

Amongst the NHL's best at churning out 'just a guys' and pro-level basic skills--what they've been able to do in rounds 3-7 is magnificent

Looking to be amongst the NHL's worst at doing literally anything with blue chip talent--what they've been able to do with rounds 1-2 is looking worse by the day

I guess it could be just 15 years of 'bad luck' only specifically in 'high talent' rounds but then you're just saying nothing matters and don't evaluate anyone's ability to draft or develop.

Edit: hell you go back into the 2010s and they're getting more NHL games out of 7th rounders than 1st and 2nd rounders combined half the time, it's insane

 

[johnjm22]

We have literal decade + of evidence with almost exactly this exact development staff and a lot of what quite a few of us hypothesized is coming true right in front of our eyes

Amongst the NHL's best at churning out 'just a guys' and pro-level basic skills--what they've been able to do in rounds 3-7 is magnificent

Looking to be amongst the NHL's worst at doing literally anything with blue chip talent--what they've been able to do with rounds 1-2 is looking worse by the day

I guess it could be just 15 years of 'bad luck' only specifically in 'high talent' rounds but then you're just saying nothing matters and don't evaluate anyone's ability to draft or develop.

Edit: hell you go back into the 2010s and they're getting more NHL games out of 7th rounders than 1st and 2nd rounders combined half the time, it's insane

We were talking about Al Murray.

But I don't really agree with most of what you're saying. I don't really blame anyone for top 5 picks missing (aside from Hickey). I think it's mostly luck when you're taking a player that high who's appropriately rated (and it's not like we've had that many top 5 picks to begin with). And it seems like we've had our fair share of 2nd round hits.

 

[Herby]

We have literal decade + of evidence with almost exactly this exact development staff and a lot of what quite a few of us hypothesized is coming true right in front of our eyes

Amongst the NHL's best at churning out 'just a guys' and pro-level basic skills--what they've been able to do in rounds 3-7 is magnificent

Looking to be amongst the NHL's worst at doing literally anything with blue chip talent--what they've been able to do with rounds 1-2 is looking worse by the day

I guess it could be just 15 years of 'bad luck' only specifically in 'high talent' rounds but then you're just saying nothing matters and don't evaluate anyone's ability to draft or develop.

Edit: hell you go back into the 2010s and they're getting more NHL games out of 7th rounders than 1st and 2nd rounders combined half the time, it's insane

I think had the Kings chosen to develop prospects in a traditional manner and failed like this, that maybe you could chalk it up to bad luck. But when the dreadful results go hand-in-hand with a development philosophy on top picks that is unique to the Kings with the heavy AHL usage, you have to place a lot of blame on the Kings. It's the drive to the wedding analogy I've used before. When 32 cars leave one place to drive into town to go to a wedding, and most cars trust the GPS that says to take the highway, but the Kings (and a couple of others) decide to do it their own way and drive through the woods and then end up missing the ceremony, you just have to blame the Kings. When you have historically bad results from one Top 5 pick, ok maybe it's bad luck. But when you have it from successive picks it's probably not a coincidence.

I really don't think there is another team in the NHL that would have pulled Alex Turcotte from Wisconsin at the end of his freshman season to put him in the AHL (maybe Winnipeg). No hyperbole, it was probably the worst freshman pull I've seen since I started following college hockey closely. Maybe there are a couple of teams who would have taken the route the Kings took with QB (contending teams, which the Kings weren't). But historical evidence clearly shows that the vast majority of teams have decided to put players taken that high in the NHL right away, and the results of those players through three years have been significantly better than what the Kings have gotten out of QB in the same time frame, and really in most cases it's not even close.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Going back and forth with Hoven on Facebook - he is holding firm that Bjornfot will be the #6 D.

The Kings will be the softest team in the NHL without Englund on the bottom pair. No question. Clarke won't be able to play his game - every team will run him. PLD won't be able to irritate like he did in Winnipeg and had Lowry, Stanley, and Dillon to watch his back. Even in Columbus he had Foligno and Josh Anderson his first few years.

Horrible management. Englund needs to be the #6 D with Spence or Clarke to protect them and add some jam to the line-up.

Also, the Kings are bringing Jacob Doty to Australia - this shows how soft they are that they have to bring a 30 year old AHL Enforcer on an AHL deal on the trip so the Coyotes don't take advantage of the Kings.

F YOU BLAKE! You played in this league hidden behind guys like McSorley, Parker, and Worrell and mentored under Lombardi and now you decide to ice a Swedish ice skating team. What a JOKE.

 

[NikF]

I think the most likely scenario isn't Dean building a specific type of hockey as much as it was an astute and unsympathetic acknowledgement of what his core young players have and didn't have. He gave them rope under Crawford, saw specific deficiencies and acted accordingly.

I doubt it if you look at what he did with team USA

 

[FSL KINGS]

I doubt it if you look at what he did with team USA

 

[King'sPawn]

I doubt it if you look at what he did with team USA

Throwing together a team to compete for a couple weeks requires a different mindset from constructing an organization.

 

[Herby]

The 2016 World Cup was pretty good evidence that Lombardi's vision of roster construction was akin to trying to keep your pay phone business going at the turn of the century. It worked great for awhile, but the game was changing. Justin Abdelkader and Brandon Dubinsky should never have been anywhere close to a best vs best tournament for a country with the talent level of the USA.

 

[johnjm22]

1	1	NY Rangers	Alexis Lafreniere	L	Rimouski Oceanic [QMJHL]	216	47	44	91	78	2022-23
1	2	Los Angeles	Quinton Byfield	C	Sudbury Wolves [OHL]	99	8	25	33	52	2022-23
1	3	Ottawa	Tim Stutzle	L	Mannheim Eagles [DEL]	210	73	104	177	105	2022-23
1	4	Detroit	Lucas Raymond	L	Frolunda HC [SweHL]	156	40	62	102	40	2022-23
1	5	Ottawa	Jake Sanderson	D	U.S. National Under-18 Team [USHL]	77	4	28	32	12	2022-23

The top 5 draft picks of 2020. The top 2 have struggled the most, while the bottom 3 have performed the best.

I'm sure if Ottawa had the top 2 picks, they would have selected both Stutzle and Sanderson.

 

[Schmooley]

1	1	NY Rangers	Alexis Lafreniere	L	Rimouski Oceanic [QMJHL]	216	47	44	91	78	2022-23
1	2	Los Angeles	Quinton Byfield	C	Sudbury Wolves [OHL]	99	8	25	33	52	2022-23
1	3	Ottawa	Tim Stutzle	L	Mannheim Eagles [DEL]	210	73	104	177	105	2022-23
1	4	Detroit	Lucas Raymond	L	Frolunda HC [SweHL]	156	40	62	102	40	2022-23
1	5	Ottawa	Jake Sanderson	D	U.S. National Under-18 Team [USHL]	77	4	28	32	12	2022-23

The top 5 draft picks of 2020. The top 2 have struggled the most, while the bottom 3 have performed the best.

I'm sure if Ottawa had the top 2 picks, they would have selected both Stutzle and Sanderson.

Lafreniere came into a situation where he was playing for a team with Stanley Cup aspirations. He had to learn how to grind and play defensively to get any ice time. Stutzle came in and was allowed to be a -40. Lafreniere and Byfield were developed very differently than the others and it didnt pay off in the short term. There is still time to see the players they become though.

 

[Herby]

1	1	NY Rangers	Alexis Lafreniere	L	Rimouski Oceanic [QMJHL]	216	47	44	91	78	2022-23
1	2	Los Angeles	Quinton Byfield	C	Sudbury Wolves [OHL]	99	8	25	33	52	2022-23
1	3	Ottawa	Tim Stutzle	L	Mannheim Eagles [DEL]	210	73	104	177	105	2022-23
1	4	Detroit	Lucas Raymond	L	Frolunda HC [SweHL]	156	40	62	102	40	2022-23
1	5	Ottawa	Jake Sanderson	D	U.S. National Under-18 Team [USHL]	77	4	28	32	12	2022-23

The top 5 draft picks of 2020. The top 2 have struggled the most, while the bottom 3 have performed the best.

I'm sure if Ottawa had the top 2 picks, they would have selected both Stutzle and Sanderson.

Evaluation is only part of it, and with the Kings the way bigger issue has been bizarre development moves that have really hurt these players. The development decisions with Stutzle, Raymond and Sanderson were significantly better than the Kings development decision on QB. Just as the year before the development decisions with Boldy and Caufield were way better than the one with Turcotte. Byfield basically had a wasted year at age 18, which is a huge year for player development. He showed up at age 19 and looked just as lost as he would have the year before had he been in the NHL, except he was a year older. There is a reason teams almost always have top 1-2 picks (especially forwards from the CHL) in the NHL at 18, and there is a reason most of those picks end up being very good to superstar players very quickly.

Turcotte is a bit different because obviously the evaluation of his talent level (by the Kings and everyone else) was way off. But even with that, if he projects as a 3rd line center, the Kings damaged that upside by pulling him from school to play in the AHL as an undersized teenager, again there is a reason that most teams send their NCAA picks back to school for a 2nd year, unless they are ready to play in the NHL, which Alex Turcotte clearly was not. Don't believe me? Listen to interviews with Beniers, Power, Caufield and Werenski all of these guys said how much coming back for that 2nd year meant for their growth as prospects. The Kings denied that from Alex Turcotte because they have a bizarre obsession with getting everyone, even teenagers into the AHL as quickly as possible to "learn the system" and to end up as good little checkers (credit RJ).

The development decisions and the subsequent poor ROI on these two in comparison to players taken around them or around their draft slots in previous and subsequent years can't just all be chalked up to bad luck, there were some truly awful and baffling decisions made by the Kings with their two highest picks in a dozen years, and those decisions have had a very negative effect on those players.

 

[Schrute farms]

I'm sure if Ottawa had the top 2 picks, they would have selected both Stutzle and Sanderson.

You'd be wrong.

 

[Statto]

Lafreniere came into a situation where he was playing for a team with Stanley Cup aspirations. He had to learn how to grind and play defensively to get any ice time. Stutzle came in and was allowed to be a -40. Lafreniere and Byfield were developed very differently than the others and it didnt pay off in the short term. There is still time to see the players they become though.

At this point the context for QB cannot be forgotten as he is both young for his draft class and more importantly he’s basically lost the best part of a year due to injury and health (the latter took time to fully recover). At this point it matters, although if we were comparing them aged 25 the weighting of that time lost becomes very low, but right now the lost time is significant.

Now, there is still legitimate debate as to how well his development has been handled and there are definitely some valid gripes.

 

[tbrown33]

I just don't think you need analytics to point out that a 2nd-round pick with persistent injuries the last few seasons has a low probability of NHL staying power.

Especially when analytics doesn't quantify the contributions of energy players as well as others.

Also, that is just one model. I personally rely more on Hockey Prospecting

Keep in mind: these NHLe metrics that both these models use are not advanced analytics. They only measure pure production at lower levels and how that translates into probability of success in the NHL. It's why you even see guys like Brock Faber scored unfavorably. So with these guys who project for bottom six roles/reliable middle pairing defenseman, you have to take it with context.

 

[Herby]

If a model says a guy has a 34% chance of being an NHL player and three days after his college season ends he immediately jumps into an NHL playoff roster then the model should probably not be taken serious. I realize it is going to be skewed against a guy like Faber, but come on, the kid was a huge defensive star from the moment he stepped on the ice as a freshman at the NCAA level, proved it even more at the Intl level against pros and didn't miss a beat in the NHL. I just don't get how a model that completely ignores players who are superstar caliber in the D zone can even exist.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

1	1	NY Rangers	Alexis Lafreniere	L	Rimouski Oceanic [QMJHL]	216	47	44	91	78	2022-23
1	2	Los Angeles	Quinton Byfield	C	Sudbury Wolves [OHL]	99	8	25	33	52	2022-23
1	3	Ottawa	Tim Stutzle	L	Mannheim Eagles [DEL]	210	73	104	177	105	2022-23
1	4	Detroit	Lucas Raymond	L	Frolunda HC [SweHL]	156	40	62	102	40	2022-23
1	5	Ottawa	Jake Sanderson	D	U.S. National Under-18 Team [USHL]	77	4	28	32	12	2022-23

The top 5 draft picks of 2020. The top 2 have struggled the most, while the bottom 3 have performed the best.

I'm sure if Ottawa had the top 2 picks, they would have selected both Stutzle and Sanderson.

I don't understand why you keep deliberately dodging the development question when there are very legitimate thoughts. @Herby outlined it well above, but to my previous point you're basically then saying it's all a crapshoot and nothing matters.

If a model says a guy has a 34% chance of being an NHL player and three days after his college season ends he immediately jumps into an NHL playoff roster then the model should probably not be taken serious. I realize it is going to be skewed against a guy like Faber, but come on, the kid was a huge defensive star from the moment he stepped on the ice as a freshman at the NCAA level, proved it even more at the Intl level against pros and didn't miss a beat in the NHL. I just don't get how a model that completely ignores players who are superstar caliber in the D zone can even exist.

most models, prospects and otherwise, are absolute dog water towards defensive players, unfortunately

 

[King'sPawn]

Also, that is just one model. I personally rely more on Hockey Prospecting View attachment 741567

Keep in mind: these NHLe metrics that both these models use are not advanced analytics. They only measure pure production at lower levels and how that translates into probability of success in the NHL. It's why you even see guys like Brock Faber scored unfavorably. So with these guys who project for bottom six roles/reliable middle pairing defenseman, you have to take it with context.

View attachment 741570

One thing I will agree with on bland regarding analytics is there's definitely an impact that's not been properly measured or quantified. Where we differ is he feels it's immeasurable/incalculable, and I just feel that the right data/formulae hasn't been captured to reflect it.

That's why I'm still on the fence with all models. Not that they're bad or flawed. But rather, they are limited by the information we have available.

Energy players will have some impacts measured, but so far there has not been one that calculates for momentum - either stopping the opponent or pushing your own team to success. And the models haven't accounted for that.