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Rumor: Planning Ahead: 2019 Off-Season

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SettlementRichie10 said:
Dean didn’t switch seats on the Titanic with trades like Gaborik for Phaneuf. He also never sold those early years as contending years, nor did he make any signing anywhere close to the Kovalchuk deal.

Overall, I don’t think Blake has done an outright terrible job. He has drafted pretty well, and the Pearson and Muzzin trades were some deft management moves. But overall, the issue with Blake (moreso Luc) is this propaganda that the team is still a contender.
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I actually think Blake took on a more challenging start than Lombardi, given the contracts and the state of the franchise when both inherited the team. Starting out with a 19-year-old Kopitar, 22-year-old Dustin Brown, 24-year-old Mike Cammalleri and Alexander Frolov, and a 21-year-old Jonathan Quick in the pipeline is a significantly better position to be in than what Blake had to start with.

The pipeline Blake started out with was abysmal, and I think the roster makeup he started with didn't give him much of an option but to bank on these players to see what they were truly made of. That's how I viewed year one in this current era.

Clearly these guys performed over their heads, and this year Blake got a reality check that this team is closer to the squad that missed the playoffs in three of the past five seasons and hasn't won a playoff series in five years. I view the Todd McLellan hiring and the trades made this season as Blake's attempt to restructure the team as he sees fit. He has a lot to fix with this roster.

Dean followed what he preached for the first six years, then after 2014, he made a series of shortsighted moves that the team is still paying for. Regardless, it resulted in two Stanley Cups, so I'm not bemoaning any of those moves that led to those runs, but the lack of foresight after 2014 went on for three more years and put this team back into the black hole.
 
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Ziggy Stardust said:
I actually think Blake took on a more challenging start than Lombardi, given the contracts and the state of the franchise when both inherited the team. Starting out with a 19-year-old Kopitar, 22-year-old Dustin Brown, 24-year-old Mike Cammalleri and Alexander Frolov, and a 21-year-old Jonathan Quick in the pipeline is a significantly better position to be in than what Blake had to start with.

The pipeline Blake started out with was abysmal, and I think the roster makeup he started with didn't give him much of an option but to bank on these players to see what they were truly made of. That's how I viewed year one in this current era.

Clearly these guys performed over their heads, and this year Blake got a reality check that this team is closer to the squad that missed the playoffs in three of the past five seasons and hasn't won a playoff series in five years. I view the Todd McLellan hiring and the trades made this season as Blake's attempt to restructure the team as he sees fit. He has a lot to fix with this roster.

Dean followed what he preached for the first six years, then after 2014, he made a series of shortsighted moves that the team is still paying for. Regardless, it resulted in two Stanley Cups, so I'm not bemoaning any of those moves that led to those runs, but the lack of foresight after 2014 went on for three more years and put this team back into the black hole.
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I definitely agree that Lombardi started out in a better position as far as pipeline goes.

One thing you have to give Lombardi credit for (which Blake may not need to deal with) is his total restructuring of the franchise from scouts to AHL management and coaching to upper management and hockey ops guys and cap gurus like Solomon. Very impressive work by Lombardi during those early years.
 
My fear is Blake is hiring or keeping his old pals around like Glenn Murray, Emerson, etc. There are a lot of ex players. Don’t want to end up like the Oilers.

Lombardi brought in guys like Yanetti, Futa and O’Connoll. They are still around but something is to be said with not only hiring former players around BUT also former GM’s or coaches from juniors or the NHL.
 
Johnny Utah said:
My fear is Blake is hiring or keeping his old pals around like Glenn Murray, Emerson, etc. There are a lot of ex players. Don’t want to end up like the Oilers.

Lombardi brought in guys like Yanetti, Futa and O’Connoll. They are still around but something is to be said with not only hiring former players around BUT also former GM’s or coaches from juniors or the NHL.
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Emerson has been around since Lombardi. Every team does this. I'm not sure why it's such a big concern here.
 
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Management fessed up saying they were foolish in not doing a ground level evaluation of the franchise prior to this season. That being a 98 point team the prior season doesn't mean slight tinkering and health and you're a 100+ point team. Blake took responsibility for it and pushed the change in annual evaluation for everyone. Easier said than done and maybe it's just lip service, but Luc was incredibly forthcoming in admitting where they f'd up. Don't expect any major UFA signing for at least another season or two as well. They're looking to shed contracts of the veterans who are blocking the way of the youth. 13 contracts or so they mentioned would be coming off the books from now until next off-season.
 
Dean was great at finding undervalued assets in both the trade market and FA. Carter, Gaborik, Williams, Mitchell. Even when he paid full value (Stoll, Greene) or slightly overpaid (Richards, Richardson Penner) they ended up being good fits for the Kings in the playoffs. The problem is, that strategy is tough to sustain if you are drafting poorly and/or trading your good draft picks because the cap prevents you from winning without multiple guys on ELC's. The Kings have had an insanely small amount of good players on an ELC the last few years. I think that is going to change very shortly and you have to give Blake credit if it works out that way.
 
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Ziggy Stardust said:
A refresher on how the Kings' first three years went under Dean Lombardi. His first two offseasons were 2006 and 2007 were rough. It was his third offseason when he finally added players like Stoll, Greene and O'Donnell who really started to help steer this team in the right direction (along with his second coaching hire).

- Hired Marc Crawford as head coach.
- Traded Pavol Demitra for Patrick O'Sullivan and the 17th overall pick (Trevor Lewis).
- Signed Rob Blake, Scott Thornton, Alyn McCauley, Brian Willsie.
- Traded 2nd & 3rd round picks to Vancouver for Dan Cloutier and immediately gave him a two-year extension.
- Traded Eric Belanger and Tim Gleason to Carolina for Jack Johnson and Oleg Tverdovsky.
- Traded Craig Conroy to Calgary for Jamie Lundmark, a fourth round pick (Dwight King) and a second round pick.
- Traded Sean Avery to New York R. for Jason Ward, Marc-Andre Cliche, and Jan Marek.
- Traded Brent Sopel to Vancouver for a second round pick (Wayne Simmonds) and a fourth round pick.
- Traded Mattias Norstrom, Konstantin Pushkarev, a third and fourth round pick to Dallas for Jaroslav Modry, Johan Fransson, a first round pick, second round pick, and third round pick
- Signed Michal Handzus, Ladislav Nagy, Brad Stuart, Tom Preissing and Kyle Calder.
- Waived Dan Cloutier.
- Traded Jaroslav Modry for a third rounder.
- Traded Brad Stuart for a second and a fourth.
- Fired Marc Crawford.
- Hired Terry Murray.
- Traded Mike Cammalleri and a second for a first and a second (which were flipped to acquire a first round pick to select Colten Teubert).
- Traded Lubomir Visnovsky to Edmonton for Jarret Stoll and Matt Greene.
- Traded Patrik Hersley and Ned Lukacevic to Philadelphia for Denis Gauthier.
- Traded Lauri Tukonen to Dallas for Rich Clune.
- Acquired Sean O'Donnell from Anaheim for a conditional pick.
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Is anyone else still pissed about Cloutier? I am
 
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YP44 said:
Is anyone else still pissed about Cloutier? I am
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I recall so many fans on here being puzzled as to why they would not only acquire Cloutier, but go on to give him an extension before he even appeared in a game. That gamble, along with Marc Crawford, didn't last long.

And on the topic of former GMs...


As you mentioned, Taylor isn't given enough credit for at least leaving Dean Lombardi with some integral building blocks before he was ousted. Dean gets all the credit for building the team around the foundation that Taylor left behind.
 
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YP44 said:
even trading for him I did not like. He sucked in Vancouver before he sucked as a king.

Extending him was ludicrous. Wasn't he coming off an injury too?
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He was, and he was injured for most of his time with the Kings. They also signed a broken Alyn McCauley who only appeared in a handful of games. I guess that’s more than we can say about Valeri Bure, who only played in preseason games.
 
Ziggy Stardust said:
I recall so many fans on here being puzzled as to why they would not only acquire Cloutier, but go on to give him an extension before he even appeared in a game. That gamble, along with Marc Crawford, didn't last long.

And on the topic of former GMs...


As you mentioned, Taylor isn't given enough credit for at least leaving Dean Lombardi with some integral building blocks before he was ousted. Dean gets all the credit for building the team around the foundation that Taylor left behind.
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Somewhat true, Taylor definitely gave DL the 3 most important piece a team can ever have but they all developed under DL's tenure which is half the battle. DL & Co's ability to draft all the depth we needed plus acquire guys like Muzzin, Mitchell, and others also helped.. Also keep in mind that Dave Taylor managed to completely blow the 2003 draft with 3- 1st rounders... Dustin Brown has been aweosme but we should have gotten much, much more.
 
Taylor made up for the 2003 debacle with his 2005 draft but, by then, it was too late for both him and Andy Murray.

The thing with Taylor is that it wasn't a stroke of genius taking Kopitar or even Brown in '03: I'm pretty sure they were the highest rated guys left on the board. It seemed that Taylor would just take the highest rated guy left and, if he didn't, he deferred to players with a lot of size.

It's pretty wild that our fan base pretty much shit on Al Murray for his role in the Taylor drafts but now he's the God of Scouts or some shit with Tampa Bay.

Anyways, Taylor did very well in a tough spot in regards to the Blake trade, pulled a great one in acquiring Palffy/Smolinski and did well to get a 1C in Allison. Just extremely unfortunate to have Deadmarsh and Allison basically die. Guy put together the best line in the league which isn't too shabby of a thing to do. Would be interesting to see how he would do if given space by AEG to build a team as opposed to owning the black hole for so many years.
 
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YP44 said:
even trading for him I did not like. He sucked in Vancouver before he sucked as a king.

Extending him was ludicrous. Wasn't he coming off an injury too?
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Yes I think he was. And I am with you trading for him was very bad idea. He had sucked for a while before sucking in LA.
 
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DT invested heavily in skating talent and had a somewhat decent roster and put MATHIEU GARON and JASON LABARBERA between the pipes. Garon was 27 years old with 43 games of NHL experience and was basically given the starting job and proceeded to put up a 3.22 GAA and sub .90 save%. That alone was fireable negligence.

Don't blame DL for going for a goalie right away, maybe he got the wrong one but the thought of having Mathieu Garon's name in one of his white boxes probably made him nauseous.
 
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Herby said:
DT invested heavily in skating talent and had a somewhat decent roster and put MATHIEU GARON and JASON LABARBERA between the pipes. Garon was 27 years old with 43 games of NHL experience and was basically given the starting job and proceeded to put up a 3.22 GAA and sub .90 save%. That alone was fireable negligence.

Don't blame DT for going for a goalie right away, maybe he got the wrong one but the thought of having Mathieu Garon's name in one of his white boxes probably made him nauseous.
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Labarbera was the AHL's top goalie during the lockout when the AHL had the best caliber of players. Garon looked solid.

I wonder how many more wins the kings would have had this year if Quick had a 900 save %
 
The Garon threads back in the day were great. Montreal fans were certain they could parlay him into a huge bounty. And then he cleared waivers. One incredulous fan posted something along the lines of "Well, Montreal must have made an agreement with every other team so they didn't claim him."
 
Herby said:
DT invested heavily in skating talent and had a somewhat decent roster and put MATHIEU GARON and JASON LABARBERA between the pipes. Garon was 27 years old with 43 games of NHL experience and was basically given the starting job and proceeded to put up a 3.22 GAA and sub .90 save%. That alone was fireable negligence.

Don't blame DL for going for a goalie right away, maybe he got the wrong one but the thought of having Mathieu Garon's name in one of his white boxes probably made him nauseous.
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I was going to mention that he never got goaltending except for a short time from Potvin. Tried Cechmanek and then seemingly went with Garon because he put up a hell of a game against LA in Staples a few months prior.

No problems with DL going with Bernier with his 1st pick. We were all so thirsty for a good goalie that I don't think any of us were super upset. If that was the draft with Bryan Little, I think I wanted him at that spot but wasn't upset with Bernier. I was at the game in London where he beat the defending champ Ducks in his first start and was ready to proclaim him a hall-of-famer. Then he got shellacked back at Staples and wasn't even the starter for the WJC.

Thank goodness the answer was already on the roster. Bernier did at least have some key contributions down the stretch in 2012 and then sank the Ducks title hopes in 2017 against Nashville.
 
Axl Rhoadz said:
?? I don’t remember Taylor ever drafting a Norris caliber dman.
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Picking #2 with a Drew Doughty on the Board was pretty easy.. drafting Jonathan Quick in the 3rd a little harder...
Drafted ;
Franchise Center
Franchise Goaltender
Our Captain!
3 pretty damn big pieces
 
Brodeur said:
The Garon threads back in the day were great. Montreal fans were certain they could parlay him into a huge bounty. And then he cleared waivers. One incredulous fan posted something along the lines of "Well, Montreal must have made an agreement with every other team so they didn't claim him."
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He fooled the poor Oilers fans as well.

Guy had a career year with the Oilers at 30 and their fans thought he was going to be the answer in goal.
 
Another thing to keep in mind that, while Taylor should definitely be remembered for the pieces he brought in, Lombardi brought in the infrastructure to take the organization to the next level.

Years ago, a buddy of mine was talking to Barry Brust when Lombardi first came in. He said the teaching was like night and day, where no real instruction was provided by the previous regime (or with the goaltending coach). It was just practice.

Lombardi also talked about wanting a more state of the art facility.

Lombardi left Blake with the infrastructure he had to get.

Credit Taylor for the pieces brought in, but credit Lombardi for identifying what the pieces (and the organization as a whole) needed.
 
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Dave Taylor was a fine GM, second best in this franchises history. But he was mediocre overall, and the Kings were a hamstrung team until AEG got the salary cap. Once Taylor had money to spend, he wasted it on Anson Carter and Jeremy Roenick. He was smart enough to hold onto draft picks, but everything else didn’t move the needle.

Blake so far is on a similar path. He doesn’t have the brains or stones, like DT, unlike DL, to rebuild this team while keeping the AEG hacks at bay.
 
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