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News Article: Revisionist History

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It seems unilateral with all of the reporters agreeing that Darryl Sutter had lost the room and he's a great coach to push a team for short spurts, and the six seasons he spent matched the previous longest stay he had behind a bench, which was in San Jose, and the same thing occurred there.

I don't think Dean was going to fire Darryl though, so that's why he had to go with him. A disappointing end for the two men who helped steer this team in the right direction, but unfortunately, they too became part of the problem. That still doesn't take away from all they did for this team for a three-year stretch that would make any other team (not named Chicago or Pittsburgh) envious.
 
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DL thought they could still win. I'm not sure how much longer it would have been before he made the conclusion that he needed to tear things down.
 
Between 06-07 to 10-11, there were many mistakes due to risky choices. DL was beginning to build a defense around Johnson and Hickey, and were a couple points from going with Bogosian I guess. That's your potential defense from a build from the net out GM.

The Richards risk was not working. They were this close to missing the playoffs, until they lucked into Carter crying about being in Columbus. Had he been happy there, what does(or could) DL do to save his job in 2012?

The complicated mixture all ended up working, but the steps that got them there aren't what I'd call unswerving. DL's whole plan was on the knife's edge often. Thankfully Williams didn't get injured again. Well, he did, but just that first full year here. Thankfully Mitchell didn't sustain more concussions. He did get hurt many times, including whatever it was in 2013, but the gamble paid off.

Like the veterans on the roster, DL had his time. A lot had to go right, because a lot went wrong, even before mid June 2014. Talk about the knife's edge. By all rational thought, they should've lost to SJ in 2014. Had that season ended with a thud, maybe they would've had the 2015 and 2016 picks, certainly get rid of Richards, let Gaborik and Greene walk, maybe even end up trading Kopitar, since they would've been just a 1 hit wonder that got extremely hot at the right time for a couple months.

You enjoy the Cup years, because it's exceedingly difficult to win. However, without lucking out on Carter, the culmination of DL's plan was a team that was fighting for 8th in the conference. That's with landing Doughty, who you could actually build a defense around. Maybe win a bad division that year, since the Coyotes were 6th in the conference.
 
I would say the Kings arrived a year ahead of schedule due to the midseason acquisition of Carter.

Win or lose in 2012, Lombardi should have kept his job.
 
Why call the thread revisionist history?

Edit: Ah okay didn't know the name of the article was revisionist. My bad

Rob Blake was an underling under Lombardi and tried to sell everyone that this team could still compete. Why does anyone think Lombardi would've done anything different than seasons after 2014? The only difference between the 2 of them was that Blake was willing to change the style of the team and Lombardi was still stubborn enough to try to win the same way he did in 2012 and 2014. For all the talk about Lombardi talking about dynasties like the Yankees, Red Wings and the 49ers, he wasn't following what those teams preached.
 
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I think the only decision DL would have wanted a redo on was not using the compliance buyout on Richards. I think it's the only one he's expressed regret about.
 
It took 3 strikes to knock out DL.

Strike 1 - not buying out Mike Richards when he held the clear rights to do so.

Strike 2 - selling futures and not getting deep playoff runs out of it for 3 consecutive seasons.

Strike 3 - not changing head coaches when the Kings were knocked out of the playoffs in 4 games in 2016.

Holding onto Sutter combined with missing the playoffs in his final season sealed his fate at AEG with BLuc scheming in the wings.
 
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It's tough to talk about how DL was too attached to the players so he had to go only to watch Blake roll the same f***ers out there while adding a $6MM, 35+ year old contract to help them out.

He needed to let go of Sutter. That is the guy he was too attached to in the grand scheme of things. That's the one thing that Bluc had no problem doing but they showed that they were just as attached to the players as DL.
 
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kingsholygrail said:
I think the only decision DL would have wanted a redo on was not using the compliance buyout on Richards. I think it's the only one he's expressed regret about.
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There's that. He shouldn't have signed Gaborik, even after that run. No Lucic trade. No Sekera trade. No Bishop trade. Just off those 3 trades he wouldve still had McKeown, a 2015 1st, Miller, whatever he wouldve gotten for Jones in a trade, a 2016 1st and Cernak.
 
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I wish Dean would write his book. I would like to know how much he was thinking about cleaning house, if he was at all.

Some of his comments about players in the last in depth interview he did with Bob Miller led me to believe he was ready to cut ties with some of the core group that remained.
 
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Reaper45 said:
There's that. He shouldn't have signed Gaborik, even after that run. No Lucic trade. No Sekera trade. No Bishop trade. Just off those 3 trades he wouldve still had McKeown, a 2015 1st, Miller, whatever he wouldve gotten for Jones in a trade, a 2016 1st and Cernak.
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I was fine with Gaborik. Guy had 27 in his first full season. Kopitar shit the bed that year and, of course, Voynov. They still missed the playoffs by only a point while leaving like 12-13 points on the table in OT/SO losses. Keeping Richards and the Lucic trade are the biggest whiffs as the risk greatly outweighed the reward. The Sekera trade made much more sense than the aforementioned. Pearson was playing well that year also before the leg break. I can't fault DL for thinking they could be a legit contender in 2016 but re-signing Lucic would depend on them going on another deep run that would lead to Lucic being willing to take a discount. It was too much of an "all-in" due to the price given up while the Sekera trade wasn't too much of a price. That price just seemed to increase once DL tossed another 1st out there in the Lucic deal.

With Gaborik, the injury concerns and age play in to worrying about giving such a long contract, but it wound up being a legit knee-on-knee injury and not the usual soft tissue bullshit that signaled the beginning of the end for him. Guy looked like the perfect compliment to Kopitar so it would have been really hard to walk away after the '14 run.
 
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I was all about letting Sutter go, but was absolutely shocked that DL went with him.

DL made mistakes, but what GM doesn't? l have no doubt he would have learned from his mistakes, eventually, and adapt accordingly.

I never felt that DL didn't have a plan...whether he was able to execute that plan...well sometimes not, but obviously that plan paid off big twice. Can't say I've ever felt that Blake has had a plan or any creativity with his position. I feel like he's goes with the safe, predictable moves to keep his job...that worries me.

I would take the 'bad' years we've had with DL a hundred times over the 'bad' years with Blake...which is all of them so far.
 
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Ziggy Stardust said:
I guess some of you have fonder memories of the Marc Crawford/Dan Cloutier era than the rest of us.

That sure was a great “plan.”
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True, but we all knew we were going to suck and it's not like Lombardi ever tried to convince us otherwise. Meanwhile, Blake and Luc are working on their season-seat holder speech to try and convince everyone we will be a contender.
 
The whole Lucic thing just leaves a terrible taste. Not only will it go down as one of the worst trades in team history, the attempt to double down on him with an 8 year deal is just hard to overlook.

And the Kings weren't going to keep winning on the backs of players drafted in 2003, 2005 and 2008. The inability to add any first line forwards or first pair defenseman through the draft for almost a decade is also hard to overlook.

Both had a shelf life and probably moved on at exactly the right time (Maybe Sutter a year earlier)
 
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Herby said:
The whole Lucic thing just leaves a terrible taste. Not only will it go down as one of the worst trades in team history, the attempt to double down on him with an 8 year deal is just hard to overlook.

And the Kings weren't going to keep winning on the backs of players drafted in 2003, 2005 and 2008. The inability to add any first line forwards or first pair defenseman through the draft for almost a decade is also hard to overlook.

Both had a shelf life and probably moved on at exactly the right time (Maybe Sutter a year earlier)
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I do wonder how much influence AEG had on "doubling down" and continuing to go for it, at least in the sense of not moving on from all of the Twitter favorites.

They fire DL and then say that the current roster is a Cup contender so they seemed pretty cool with keeping everyone, apparently.
 
The Kings weren’t trying to double down on Lucic, their end offer was 8/$34M which they knew he would never accept. They were offering even less to begin with. That was nothing more than a show offer, Edmonton was too dumb or desperate to realize it at the time.

The Kings made an offer just to save a little face on the trade, nothing more.
 
King'sPawn said:
I love Dean and appreciate everything he accomplished, and forever will.

But I think he attached himself too much to too many pieces where I don't think he could have done it, even if he wanted to.
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Yep. He absolutely had the ability and vision to do it, but I think he would have been still too attached to the current players. Anywhere he gets a fresh start, he'll be great. But I think he became too emotionally conflicted here.
 
Fishhead said:
The Kings weren’t trying to double down on Lucic, their end offer was 8/$34M which they knew he would never accept. They were offering even less to begin with. That was nothing more than a show offer, Edmonton was too dumb or desperate to realize it at the time.

The Kings made an offer just to save a little face on the trade, nothing more.
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That was Dean's go-to move, offer way more years to lower the cap hit. It was pushing problems down the river. Richards, Greene, Gaborik, Carter, Brown, Quick all signed to long term deals well past their primes, was probably trying to do the same with Lucic.
 
Herby said:
That was Dean's go-to move, offer way more years to lower the cap hit. It was pushing problems down the river. Richards, Greene, Gaborik, Carter, Brown, Quick all signed to long term deals well past their primes, was probably trying to do the same with Lucic.
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Possibly, but he was certainly aware of what Lucic was getting offered from other teams. I don't think he had any intention of signing him unless it was ridiculously cheap, I think he learned from the Richards fiasco. But I don't think anyone foresaw just how far Lucic would drop off, he was worse than Richards that last year when he got sent down.
 
Is this a thread about going back and revising history? Sure, I'll play.....



The Ducks NEVER won the Cup....... EVER!!!!!!!!
 
If you're going to fire the Stanley Cup winning GM and Coach, you should fire EVERYONE. Except Ranford.
 
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