Toggle sidebar

Speculation: LA Kings Offseason Thread

  • Work is still on-going to rebuild the site styling and features. Please report any issues you may experience so we can look into it. Click Here for Updates
Status
Not open for further replies.
Johnny Utah said:
Barbashev smoked Tkachuk and plays nasty. Marchessault has bite also.

Same with Stephenson and Stone.

The Kings do not have a Carrier-Roy-Kolesar line either. They had Lemieux who fought two of those three players on the 4th line and dealt him away with a player who doesn't want to do the job.
Click to expand...
Kempe, Fiala and Danault can be chippy, but they’re definitely not big hitters like Barbashev, who is about to get overpaid as a UFA. There is no available top six power forward who is going to land here. They can try to address the issue with size and toughness with some upgrades to the bottom six, but I think finding more depth is what they’re looking to accomplish now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Johnny Utah
Not surprising.

PLD gives them with the best chance to win a Stanley Cup in the next 1-3 years out of anyone available (assuming Matthews isn’t traded), and that works with the cap. It’s the same situation as Fiala last summer and Danault the one before.

The organizations big hole is at 2C for now but could be 1C as early as this season. People say 3C is a big hole, but the best way to fill that for a competitive team is to acquire a better C and push the current 2C to 3C.

Kopitar/PLD/Danault down the middle is good. You don’t have a star center, but you are better than most teams at 2C and 3C. And even if Kopitar falls down a notch and is more of a solid 2C, you could make the playoffs with PLD as your best center.

This is tough for me, I think the whole strategy since the summer of 2021 is complete bonkers. But now that they have gone down the all-in for 11 and 8 path I totally see why they are very strongly in on PLD. When you are against such a small window, you have to be.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Schrute farms
Why even it call it a "window"?

No playoff series won since 2014, only 6 playoff games won over that span. Same #1c, same #1d, same leadership group, same coaching, same deficiencies along the wall, same inability to hold leads.

This isn't a window, its a keyhole. They are not even remotely close to winning anything.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Reaper45, Schrute farms, tigermask48 and 1 other person
Herby said:
Not surprising.

PLD gives them with the best chance to win a Stanley Cup in the next 1-3 years out of anyone available (assuming Matthews isn’t traded), and that works with the cap. It’s the same situation as Fiala last summer and Danault the one before.

The organizations big hole is at 2C for now but could be 1C as early as this season. People say 3C is a big hole, but the best way to fill that for a competitive team is to acquire a better C and push the current 2C to 3C.

Kopitar/PLD/Danault down the middle is good. You don’t have a star center, but you are better than most teams at 2C and 3C. And even if Kopitar falls down a notch and is more of a solid 2C, you could make the playoffs with PLD as your best center.

This is tough for me, I think the whole strategy since the summer of 2021 is complete bonkers. But now that they have gone down the all-in for 11 and 8 path I totally see why they are very strongly in on PLD. When you are against such a small window, you have to be.
Click to expand...

Here's a question then, push comes to shove, and you can move out salary etc, do you deal Kaliyev in a deal for PLD, or 2024 1st in a deal for PLD? If WPG says they are fine with either one, which one do you move.
 
PLD makes sense from an age and positional standpoint.

But his game has been very up and down going all the way back to junior. There's a pattern there.

Signing him to a long term contract is very risky. However, with the cap going to 90M+ having him locked up at 7.5M-ish through his prime years could look like a steal in a few years if he consistently performs.
 
I can win all the tiresome Byfield debates with one phrase: "I believe Byfield is going to bust out next year"

google janus words for more info
 
Saying ++ is always funny, is ++ going to be Turcotte/Madden and a 4th or is it Spence and a 2nd. I would say QB’s trade value is close to what Dach’s was last year. I think part of why Chicago moved on was concern that last summer was going to be the last chance to get anything in return. I think we are at that point with QB, they could still get value for him, but another down season and he’s Lias to the Kings type value next summer.

The issue is if you keep QB while trading for PLD, he is locked into a winger role for at least 1 more year and for as long as Kopitar is brought back. I’m curious to see what the Kings do (if anything) with Kopitar on July 1st when he’s eligible for an extension. It’s probably in the Kings best interests to just do 1 year deals with Kopitar once his contract ends. But even about to be 36 he’s still probably the best player on the team and could be looking at a two-year extension.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Schrute farms
The ultimate thing that Vegas winning shows is that GMs are not as smart as the like to pretend they are. Of course that says a lot about Blake, but I also mean it towards everyone else.

Vegas's building strategy was simply making trades and signings where they were ahead in either small ways or large ways, and that all started from their expansion draft where they used their leverage and the salary cap to fleece a bunch of people. Once that first season was in, they knew what they had and spent these last 6 years trying to capitalize.

If Blake is trying to do the same and get one last bite at the apple with 11 and 8, I think with what happened with Vegas shows that anything is possible. He did it with Fiala, and as much as some people think that Faber was the next coming of Jesus Christ, he got a PPG winger who makes teammates better on a good deal for a relatively fair price. He did with Arvidsson, an extremely solid all around player for pennies on the dollar after a down year. He did with Danault, who everyone said was a 5 goal a year grinder, and he has performed every year since.

The problem with Blake is that YOU NEED TO HAVE A CORE IDEA ON WHO YOUR CORE PLAYERS ARE, not just now but for the future.

Who the f does he see on our top line in 3 years? Is it Kaliyev? Is it Byfield at Center or wing? Is it Turcotte? Blake's deployment and trades make no sense from a future perspective, because he is just hoarding assets and then asking Tmac to throw shit at the wall. it's good to win deals and trades, but when the costs get higher and higher you need to know what you can spend and what you need to save.

I actively WANT Blake to trade some of our bloat of assets for quality, but I just don't trust him to recognize what is bloat and what is core.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Schrute farms and funky
Herby said:
Saying ++ is always funny, is ++ going to be Turcotte/Madden and a 4th or is it Spence and a 2nd. I would say QB’s trade value is close to what Dach’s was last year. I think part of why Chicago moved on was concern that last summer was going to be the last chance to get anything in return. I think we are at that point with QB, they could still get value for him, but another down season and he’s Lias to the Kings type value next summer.

The issue is if you keep QB while trading for PLD, he is locked into a winger role for at least 1 more year and for as long as Kopitar is brought back. I’m curious to see what the Kings do (if anything) with Kopitar on July 1st when he’s eligible for an extension. It’s probably in the Kings best interests to just do 1 year deals with Kopitar once his contract ends. But even about to be 36 he’s still probably the best player on the team and could be looking at a two-year extension.
Click to expand...

Herby I love your posts and your perspective sometimes but you often say these asides which are just crazy to me. QB just got finished posting 22 points in 53 games as a 20 year old. Lias Anderson got traded as a 21 year old after 1 point in 17 games, and the year before that posting 6 points in 42 games. Comparing just 20 year old seasons (22 pts vs 6) this comparison is just not the same.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Schrute farms
I don't think the Kings should trade futures/young players but if the Kings are so gung ho about acquiring another center, they could trade for Kuznetsov. He has a much higher ceiling than PLD, has a contract, probably cheaper to acquire, and has been a key player on a cup team.
 
Kudelski37 said:
I don't think the Kings should trade futures/young players but if the Kings are so gung ho about acquiring another center, they could trade for Kuznetsov. He has a much higher ceiling than PLD, has a contract, probably cheaper to acquire, and has been a key player on a cup team.
Click to expand...
No money. Unless they'd want like.. Iafallo and Moore or something.
 
Kudelski37 said:
I don't think the Kings should trade futures/young players but if the Kings are so gung ho about acquiring another center, they could trade for Kuznetsov. He has a much higher ceiling than PLD, has a contract, probably cheaper to acquire, and has been a key player on a cup team.
Click to expand...
No thanks. He’s 31 and scored 12 goals.
 
Kudelski37 said:
I don't think the Kings should trade futures/young players but if the Kings are so gung ho about acquiring another center, they could trade for Kuznetsov. He has a much higher ceiling than PLD, has a contract, probably cheaper to acquire, and has been a key player on a cup team.
Click to expand...
Kuznetsov is also 7 years older and will be a UFA in two years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ibleedkings and kinghock
Seems to me that Blake is looking 1-2 years down the road and seeing the center ice position being a total disaster at the rate things are going. A guy like PLD doesn't come onto the market very often and I think Blake sees an opportunity to help the present and the future at a position which is critical for success in the NHL.
 
lexlavender said:
Herby I love your posts and your perspective sometimes but you often say these asides which are just crazy to me. QB just got finished posting 22 points in 53 games as a 20 year old. Lias Anderson got traded as a 21 year old after 1 point in 17 games, and the year before that posting 6 points in 42 games. Comparing just 20 year old seasons (22 pts vs 6) this comparison is just not the same.
Click to expand...
Maybe Lias is to drastic an example, but the Dach one is very comparable. Two bigger, athletic kids taken in the top 3 who really hadn’t done much after their D3 seasons. Dach brought the #13 pick and a 3rd, that is probably about where QB is value wise. If he flops again next season you can’t possibly think the Kings could still get a similar return. Mark Yannetti can go on Pravda and make stuff up, but players do lose significant value each passing year, Dach again is a perfect example of this, in 3 years he fell 10 spots (13 to 3 is a lot) and brought back a 3rd.

Where am I off? You think he wouldn’t lose a ton of value by June 2024 if he doesn’t take a step next year?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Top Bottom