DAkings20
Kings can't score
Rebuild 2.0: The Return of the Rebuild
Obligatory Fire Todd MClellan, Rob Blake & Co.
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Rebuild 2.0: The Return of the Rebuild
I'm fully on board the fire Luc train, ever since his takeover the organization has spiraled downward in nearly every facet.
I personally think Lombardi should have gotten a chance at the rebuild. The issue is he wouldn’t fire Sutter. So it was a combo deal.
Not sure if Blake/Luc - two former players and only one with limited AGM experience are as knowledgeable as a lawyer who has been a scout and GM twice. Lombardi also surrounded himself with guys like Futa and O’Connell. Blake keeps letting some of those guys go and hiring former friends.
Not sure if Blake/Luc - two former players and only one with limited AGM experience are as knowledgeable as a lawyer who has been a scout and GM twice. Lombardi also surrounded himself with guys like Futa and O’Connell. Blake keeps letting some of those guys go and hiring former friends.
KINGS17
Smartest in the Room
- Apr 6, 2006
- 32,582
- 11,766
Luc Robitaille is not exactly Phi Beta Kappa, but he loves his guys like Blakey, Army, Brownie, Kopi, Dewey, and Quickie.
KINGS17
Smartest in the Room
- Apr 6, 2006
- 32,582
- 11,766
KINGS17
Smartest in the Room
- Apr 6, 2006
- 32,582
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Trading Pearson isn't a shake up trade. You have to trade Kopitar or Doughty. That's a shake up trade.
KINGS17
Smartest in the Room
- Apr 6, 2006
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This is the easy part. Developing them, and seeing them become NHL top-sixers and top-four, is the hard part.
KINGS17
Smartest in the Room
- Apr 6, 2006
- 32,582
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My goal posts are rooted in cement. I have always said the acquisition of young talent is the easy part.
Which of the young players Blake has acquired via trade or draft is showing signs of being a star for the Kings? I understand it is too soon for Byfield or Clarke, but there are several guys who have been in the organization for two, three, or four seasons who really aren't making progress.
KINGS17
Smartest in the Room
- Apr 6, 2006
- 32,582
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Trust me, Luc Robitaille has done nothing to help the Kings acquire one of their best prospect pools ever, other than show up for the lottery drawing.
Yes, Luc should be fired. He isn't smart, he isn't respected in the organization, and he isn't a leader.
Reaper45
Registered User
Everyone is pegging the Kings alright. End of story.
The team is soft, the d is too one dimensional, and like I said before, The Hobbit behind the bench and the Gnome King GM never turned the keys over to the kids and now that the rebuild is “over” they don’t have the taste of what they should’ve had before. What. A. Mess.
This guys delayed and ruined our rebuild by trading 1st rounds for player like Lucic and Sekera
Why on earth would you let him try the rebuild?
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
20 games and this is another lost season. Then you have to worry about development, too, throwing guys into a non-playoff team with 60 games left to play is a joke after the last 4 years.
All I require is progress. I have an extremely low bar...and I am extremely dissatisfied. It doesn't look good, the results aren't there, and the roster is still utterly stagnant,
Again, 3 years of regression from the current roster and players that hit the roster while players that leave experience an uptick...3 years of regression in record. There is NOTHING to stick up for here other than hope of a kid rescuing us, which I'm not sure I even want with the current regime. I don't WANT Byfield to save TM's job at this point. He's a proven underachiever. I don't WANT Luc's colorblind ass in charge of ANYTHING after the 15th incarnation of greyscale and the bullshit war drums. Bless Blake, he made me a believer for a bit with some trades and drafting, and Yanetti is awesome, but ultimately, it's not like they're going to fire random people in the org. If you have to flush everyone, f*** it. Don't care anymore.
I shouldn't have to hatewatch the franchise I've loved for 30 years because of f***ing hobbit nepotism and a bunch of p***yes who won't even scrum. Trade Kopitar for Casey Cizikas at this point for all I care, at least then we'll get to enjoy watching him and this franchise will have a pulse. Just get someone in the lineup with some balls and someone behind the bench that doesn't need a teddy bear. This is worse than the mid-2000s.
All I require is progress. I have an extremely low bar...and I am extremely dissatisfied. It doesn't look good, the results aren't there, and the roster is still utterly stagnant,
Again, 3 years of regression from the current roster and players that hit the roster while players that leave experience an uptick...3 years of regression in record. There is NOTHING to stick up for here other than hope of a kid rescuing us, which I'm not sure I even want with the current regime. I don't WANT Byfield to save TM's job at this point. He's a proven underachiever. I don't WANT Luc's colorblind ass in charge of ANYTHING after the 15th incarnation of greyscale and the bullshit war drums. Bless Blake, he made me a believer for a bit with some trades and drafting, and Yanetti is awesome, but ultimately, it's not like they're going to fire random people in the org. If you have to flush everyone, f*** it. Don't care anymore.
I shouldn't have to hatewatch the franchise I've loved for 30 years because of f***ing hobbit nepotism and a bunch of p***yes who won't even scrum. Trade Kopitar for Casey Cizikas at this point for all I care, at least then we'll get to enjoy watching him and this franchise will have a pulse. Just get someone in the lineup with some balls and someone behind the bench that doesn't need a teddy bear. This is worse than the mid-2000s.
DryIslandBartender
KCCO
- Jun 30, 2006
- 5,632
- 2,520
I would hold off on canning anyone right now. You have to give it 30 games or so.
In terms of Bluc, I’m not sure what their vision for the club is. They’ve had 5 years to articulate one. Two questions, will AEG fire them and who do you replace them with?
The easiest thing to do IMO is just fire Luc and replace him with Jeff Solomon. I’m not sure if Blake gets fired instead the Kings might just let his contract expire but his replacements could be Craig Conroy (flames assistant GM), Mike Futa (Carolina consultant), Pushor (lightning assistant gm) etc.
my early guess:
President of Hockey Operations: Solomon
General Manager : Pushor
Head Coach : Jeff Halpern
In terms of Bluc, I’m not sure what their vision for the club is. They’ve had 5 years to articulate one. Two questions, will AEG fire them and who do you replace them with?
The easiest thing to do IMO is just fire Luc and replace him with Jeff Solomon. I’m not sure if Blake gets fired instead the Kings might just let his contract expire but his replacements could be Craig Conroy (flames assistant GM), Mike Futa (Carolina consultant), Pushor (lightning assistant gm) etc.
my early guess:
President of Hockey Operations: Solomon
General Manager : Pushor
Head Coach : Jeff Halpern
kingsboy11
Champions Again
This is my quick analysis on Kings staff. I do regularly keep up with team pages to see who is going out and who is going in. I'm not saying this is 100% accurate as I don't remember every single thing but the general trend has been for a number of DL guys to leave (understandable to a point), former Blake/Luc teammates/buddies to see increased responsibility, then there was a large infusion of former Buffalo Sabres scouting staff for some reason (Buffalo had huge scouting turnover since Pegula kept hiring and canning people) and a large expansion of scouting staff overall (AHL scouts, Euro scouts, other scouts etc.), prominently also the analytical department was added or beefed up signficantly if it existed before.
DL seemed to draw from a wider circle than Blake and kept (perhaps intentionally) the staff smaller in numbers. Futa was a rising junior hockey star and he plucked Yannetti from Toronto as well. Hextall, O'Connell, Ferreira, Solomon...I'm not saying there weren't connections there but these guys were coming from all across the spectrum and DL hardcoded his vision into them through intense long conversations and meetings. I don't remember who said it, maybe even DL himself, but the claim is "you want to keep the smallest staff still capable of doing the job" I agree with that logic as you want the highest quality and smallest amount of voices in the room in order for the quality of opinion not to get watered down.
In my opinion Blake did the obvious in adding or beefing up the analytics department (though I think analytics are quite overrated now) and you have to give him credit for beefing up the European amateur scouting which was in my opinion sorely lacking under Lombardi for some reason. I think Blake did a good job in college scouting as well for potential FAs.
I think Blake is a reasonably bright guy, he strikes me as someone who studies a thing and likes to delegate or use consensus to arrive to conclusions. He usually does the right thing but I think he lacks genius and I have doubts about his ability when tough decisions will have to be made. Coming to the "sensible consensus" isn't always necessarily the best option and it won't be enough when major moves will have to be made to. I hope I am positively surprised by Blake but the feeling I get is Blake has problems that come at him and tries to find a sensible solution for them while Lombardi pro-actively worked to establish his vision and encountered problems to be solved *while* implementing said vision. If Lombardi pulled a significant move out of nowhere I was confident it would work (especially if it went against "perceived values") at least until his last years with the team, with Blake I don't have that same confidence.
If we were speaking of building a house from scratch..with Lombardi the feeling I got was that he knew what kind of house he wanted and he looked to solve his problems while finding a lack of this or that material. Sure you needed to walk an extra mile here or extra mile there or throw away something that was perceived as valuable for something that you actually needed, but the house looked the way you planned. While the feeling I get with Blake is that the house he is building is dictated by what the materials he finds around the area dictate to him as being sensible and so the house will look the way the circumstances dictated. If those circumstances are right, the house might be beautiful but if they aren't, you might find the materials at your disposal just aren't good enough to make the house structurally sound.
Overall, I think Lombardi is a notch smarter and more reliant on a close circle or himself to come to decisions. I think Lombardi has a better pulse on the organization, is better at finding and grooming people to work for his vision, is more demanding of people and more capable of genius single move strokes in trades, signings or otherwise. The downside is that he tends to insist on tactical positions far past their utility. I think he is simply a league better as an executive than Blake, but he might be outdated at this point if he hasn't re-calibrated his vision during his off time.
Luc Robitaille...I'm sure he is a nice guy but my sense is that he should not be around hockey decisions.
I think Mark Yannetti and Tony Gasparini are presently the two most valuable pieces of the staff.
And last but not least, a lot is dependant on some luck. It's nice when you have the option of drafting Drew Dougthy with your lottery pick and Anze Kopitar falls to #11.
Just my two cents, opinions built on organizational moves, interviews, media pieces etc. over the years.
DL seemed to draw from a wider circle than Blake and kept (perhaps intentionally) the staff smaller in numbers. Futa was a rising junior hockey star and he plucked Yannetti from Toronto as well. Hextall, O'Connell, Ferreira, Solomon...I'm not saying there weren't connections there but these guys were coming from all across the spectrum and DL hardcoded his vision into them through intense long conversations and meetings. I don't remember who said it, maybe even DL himself, but the claim is "you want to keep the smallest staff still capable of doing the job" I agree with that logic as you want the highest quality and smallest amount of voices in the room in order for the quality of opinion not to get watered down.
In my opinion Blake did the obvious in adding or beefing up the analytics department (though I think analytics are quite overrated now) and you have to give him credit for beefing up the European amateur scouting which was in my opinion sorely lacking under Lombardi for some reason. I think Blake did a good job in college scouting as well for potential FAs.
I think Blake is a reasonably bright guy, he strikes me as someone who studies a thing and likes to delegate or use consensus to arrive to conclusions. He usually does the right thing but I think he lacks genius and I have doubts about his ability when tough decisions will have to be made. Coming to the "sensible consensus" isn't always necessarily the best option and it won't be enough when major moves will have to be made to. I hope I am positively surprised by Blake but the feeling I get is Blake has problems that come at him and tries to find a sensible solution for them while Lombardi pro-actively worked to establish his vision and encountered problems to be solved *while* implementing said vision. If Lombardi pulled a significant move out of nowhere I was confident it would work (especially if it went against "perceived values") at least until his last years with the team, with Blake I don't have that same confidence.
If we were speaking of building a house from scratch..with Lombardi the feeling I got was that he knew what kind of house he wanted and he looked to solve his problems while finding a lack of this or that material. Sure you needed to walk an extra mile here or extra mile there or throw away something that was perceived as valuable for something that you actually needed, but the house looked the way you planned. While the feeling I get with Blake is that the house he is building is dictated by what the materials he finds around the area dictate to him as being sensible and so the house will look the way the circumstances dictated. If those circumstances are right, the house might be beautiful but if they aren't, you might find the materials at your disposal just aren't good enough to make the house structurally sound.
Overall, I think Lombardi is a notch smarter and more reliant on a close circle or himself to come to decisions. I think Lombardi has a better pulse on the organization, is better at finding and grooming people to work for his vision, is more demanding of people and more capable of genius single move strokes in trades, signings or otherwise. The downside is that he tends to insist on tactical positions far past their utility. I think he is simply a league better as an executive than Blake, but he might be outdated at this point if he hasn't re-calibrated his vision during his off time.
Luc Robitaille...I'm sure he is a nice guy but my sense is that he should not be around hockey decisions.
I think Mark Yannetti and Tony Gasparini are presently the two most valuable pieces of the staff.
And last but not least, a lot is dependant on some luck. It's nice when you have the option of drafting Drew Dougthy with your lottery pick and Anze Kopitar falls to #11.
Just my two cents, opinions built on organizational moves, interviews, media pieces etc. over the years.
Last edited:
Axl Rhoadz
Binky distributor
- Apr 5, 2011
- 5,343
- 3,959
Maybe because the previous rebuild (led by Lombardi) brought us two cups?? lol, you people have short memories.
...and thankfully his predecessor left him with 3 of the 4 most important pieces.
King'sPawn
Enjoy the chaos
- Jul 1, 2003
- 23,189
- 24,095
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
If your system is so complicated it takes more than 3 years to learn it and you've NEVER had a team successful with it...
Ever since he became the GM. Rob Blake has been trying to turn this team into the San Jose Sharks.
I forgot we lost him, did we ever find a reason behind him leaving for the Ducks?
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