Why did LAK let Matt Roy walk?

  • 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
Because they have Brock Faber to reconstruct the right side of the defense around…….;)

In all seriousness…great player but much like Pesce with Carolina, sometimes if you feel you have internal replacements, you have to look at the long-term cost. I don’t think the Kings didn’t want to keep Roy…I think it became an allocation of resources issue.

That Caps defense looks good though, doesn’t it? Chychrun has been a revelation, JC may be the most under appreciated defenseman of his generation, Sandin and Fehervary are really coming into their own, Roy doing his thing and TVR is even super-underrated. In terms of 1-6, definitely been one of the best units in the league and has a lot of versatility.
 
Kings had the rare problem of a stacked right side. Same thing happened in st louis which resulted in shattenkirk heading out

Yeah this is a common "problem" for the Kings since the Lombardi days...draft tons of centers and plenty of RHD, very few wingers and few goaltenders. Convert centers to wingers if you have to by either making them play out of position or dealing extra centers for wingers, acquire goalies if you have to. Basically they draft down the middle of the lineup and acquire final piece guys like scoring wingers in trades.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Raccoon Jesus
Lol, the posters talking about how dumb mgmt was to move Roy to make space for Spence and Clarke when the Kings are the #1 defensive team in the league without having Doughty skate in a single game.

I think it's less about that and more about the dogshit asset management of ALL the RHD they've had in the system.
 
My guess is that he was just looking to get paid and this was his one chance.

Here are his contracts he has had;

2017-2019 ELC. He never played one NHL game on his ELC and would have been paid his AHL portion of the contract through it’s entirety

2019-2021. 2 years — 700k a year. NHL minimum salary

2021-2024. 3 years — 3.15 a year. This was his first good paying contract which he didn’t get until he was 26

2024-2030. 6 years — 5.75 a year. He finally at the age of 29 got his chance to cash in with a big contract. He took advantage of it
 
Kings fans here were just about unanimous that they should not extend Roy to a big deal. They wanted to make space for Spence and Clarke, just like the Kings did.

Why are people trying to say this is a Rob Blake fail?
 
They had SAH defencemen similar to him in Anderson and Gavrikov, and 2 young offensive D in spence and Clarke who were also RHD. They needed to open up a RHD spot for Clarke and Roy was the one off contract, Spence is cheap and Doughty isnt going anywhere.

Great player, the Kings knew how good he was and he deserved his money, just got squezed out by the cap and circumstance.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Regal
It's because he isn't worth $5.75M until he's 35 years old. So far, he has 10 points and the 6th-worst on-ice GF% and SAT% among Caps defenders.

His GF% is 53.66% and he's achieving that while taking 60% defensive zone starts and a heavily defensive role. His GA/60 is second best on the team (among defensemen with more than 300 5v5 minutes played).

I'm not a fan of one-size-fits-all hockey metrics. There are too many different roles. IMO teams can benefit by having a range of offensive defensemen and stay at home defensemen. Roy has been the latter and I think he's pretty solid back there.
 
Kings fans here were just about unanimous that they should not extend Roy to a big deal. They wanted to make space for Spence and Clarke, just like the Kings did.

Why are people trying to say this is a Rob Blake fail?
I mean… do you really wanna sit down and chase down the trade tree that resulted in Kevin Fiala and Darcy Kuemper (again) being LA Kings this year?

I know I damn sure don’t, because it’s damned depressing. That particular trade tree (coupled with cap saving moves to accommodate Pierre) could be framed as the most gross asset mismanagement in Kings history. It’s disgusting.
 
I mean… do you really wanna sit down and chase down the trade tree that resulted in Kevin Fiala and Darcy Kuemper (again) being LA Kings this year?

I know I damn sure don’t, because it’s damned depressing. That particular trade tree (coupled with cap saving moves to accommodate Pierre) could be framed as the most gross asset mismanagement in Kings history. It’s disgusting.

What does that have to do with Matt Roy? I didn't hear any Kings fans that wanted to pay him in any scenario as long as they were keeping Spence and Clarke.
 
Kings fans here were just about unanimous that they should not extend Roy to a big deal. They wanted to make space for Spence and Clarke, just like the Kings did.

Why are people trying to say this is a Rob Blake fail?

I guess the fail would be related to whether they should have gotten something for him last year, but they were also a team trying to win in the playoffs and he made them better than Clarke at the time
 
I guess the fail would be related to whether they should have gotten something for him last year, but they were also a team trying to win in the playoffs and he made them better than Clarke at the time

Not directed at you, but HFers need to realize that when your team has about 100 or 110 pts in the standings, they're going to try and win. They're also probably not going to blow it up or retool or fire the GM. Bad teams do those things and the Kings are relatively good, however disappointing many of the moves might be.
 
I guess the fail would be related to whether they should have gotten something for him last year, but they were also a team trying to win in the playoffs and he made them better than Clarke at the time

Not directed at you, but HFers need to realize that when your team has about 100 or 110 pts in the standings, they're going to try and win. They're also probably not going to blow it up or retool or fire the GM. Bad teams do those things and the Kings are relatively good, however disappointing many of the moves might be.

It s a death by a thousand cuts is why. See earlier for the plethora of RHD LA let walk for nearly nothing, and they knew the Roy departure was coming, had plenty of options on the right that could have stepped in and needed the seasoning anyway

The failure is the decision on Roy could have been made far before last offseason especially when one year prior you had guys like Durzi and Spence eating 28 minute games in Doughty’s absence almost without skipping a beat. Instead, they rode his fading play into the playoffs, didn’t get the youth any experience, got piñata’ed worse than before anyway, AND lost him for free, all while being too gimped to make any serious deadline moves to improve the team now or future when they had the perfect ELC replacements right there. Especially when they had plenty of ‘shutdown’ guys and needed more offense from the defense and a need to keep some of the 7th guys (Englund) away from the lineup.

Yes the simplest explanation is that playoff teams sometimes just have to eat it and let a guy walk because he makes you better but that’s debatable in this case because there’s a lot more to it than just last year post-deadline. It might be the least of Blake’s RHD fumbling issues, and in and of itself it would be ‘ok’, but in context with everything else it’s nuts.
 
Kings fans here were just about unanimous that they should not extend Roy to a big deal. They wanted to make space for Spence and Clarke, just like the Kings did.

Why are people trying to say this is a Rob Blake fail?

Because the perfect ideal(trading a UFA at the deadline while you're making the playoffs but not a true contender) very rarely happens. People don't want to accept that making the playoffs, and even thinking you might get out of the 1st rd, is something every team does. Very, very, very rarely is that not the case. Other than the Sharks when they traded Douglas Murray and Ryan Clowe, which is over a decade ago, I don't know when it's happened. But people talk about it like it's common.

If you were a rookie GM, and you had a random trade for a RHD while you were in the playoff race, you're own owner would probably stop you from doing it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: majormajor and qc14
Because the perfect ideal(trading a UFA at the deadline while you're making the playoffs but not a true contender) very rarely happens. People don't want to accept that making the playoffs, and even thinking you might get out of the 1st rd, is something every team does. Very, very, very rarely is that not the case. Other than the Sharks when they traded Douglas Murray and Ryan Clowe, which is over a decade ago, I don't know when it's happened. But people talk about it like it's common.

If you were a rookie GM, and you had a random trade for a RHD while you were in the playoff race, you're own owner would probably stop you from doing it.
Washington sold and then made the playoffs. But it’s rare.
 
Weird timing with the kings being the number #1 team defensively without Doughty but Roy was getting old and pricey, and he was blocking the rookies from entering the lineup. His defensive game had started dropping too.
 
This is a strange thread. The Kings are clearly doing just fine without him and the Caps are doing great with him - it all worked out well for both teams
 
  • Like
Reactions: kingsholygrail
Because the perfect ideal(trading a UFA at the deadline while you're making the playoffs but not a true contender) very rarely happens. People don't want to accept that making the playoffs, and even thinking you might get out of the 1st rd, is something every team does. Very, very, very rarely is that not the case. Other than the Sharks when they traded Douglas Murray and Ryan Clowe, which is over a decade ago, I don't know when it's happened. But people talk about it like it's common.

If you were a rookie GM, and you had a random trade for a RHD while you were in the playoff race, you're own owner would probably stop you from doing it.
Yep. Can't believe that people still don't understand that with "asset management" the human side is incredibly important. Being a clear playoff team with hopes of contending and selling an expiring deal for futures is capital L Loser Shit and just sends a horrible message to the team, coaching staff, fans, everybody.

Keeping Roy for the playoff run then letting him walk was one of the few Rob Blake moves that actually makes sense. The Caps thank him for both Roy and PLD though!
 
  • Like
Reactions: KingsFan7824
Because the perfect ideal(trading a UFA at the deadline while you're making the playoffs but not a true contender) very rarely happens. People don't want to accept that making the playoffs, and even thinking you might get out of the 1st rd, is something every team does. Very, very, very rarely is that not the case.
Other than the Sharks when they traded Douglas Murray and Ryan Clowe, which is over a decade ago, I don't know when it's happened. But people talk about it like it's common.
Happened with the Caps last year. Traded Mantha, Edmundson, and Kuznetsov before the TDL. Got back a 2nd, two 3rds, a 4th, and a 5th.

Basically offset the picks they lost when they used a bunch of 2nd thru 5th rounders to add Thompson, Mangiapane, Chychrun, and Eller, and traded up for Ilya Protas.
 
Happened with the Caps last year. Traded Mantha, Edmundson, and Kuznetsov before the TDL. Got back a 2nd, two 3rds, a 4th, and a 5th.

Basically offset the picks they lost when they used a bunch of 2nd thru 5th rounders to add Thompson, Mangiapane, Chychrun, and Eller, and traded up for Ilya Protas.
Yes indeed but all expandable though, and Washington was still in a playoff hunt, together with about 5 other teams for the last wildcard/division spot.

I can understand that.
 
The only real issue is that we all knew Roy wasn't going to return and we wanted him traded for future assets since his value was very good.

But LA is still #1 defensively without Roy and without Doughty so their organization could afford to lose him.

My biggest gripe with Roy is that he scored more goals against LA as their own defenseman than he did for them. Every time there was a puck that was kicked or redirected into the LA net, it seemed to always be off of Roy.
 
Could they have traded him prior to last season or at the TDL? It's the "walk for nothing" I'm most curious about. Did they think they had a shot at the Cup?
How many teams bound for the playoffs trade a top-four defenseman?

The Kings, since trading Faber, Vilardi, a 1st, a 2nd, Iafallo, and Kupari for Fiala and Dubois have been going all in for the playoffs.
 
How many teams bound for the playoffs trade a top-four defenseman?

The Kings, since trading Faber, Vilardi, a 1st, a 2nd, Iafallo, and Kupari for Fiala and Dubois have been going all in for the playoffs.
That never gets any easier to digest.
 

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad