Confirmed Trade: [WSH/LAK] Pierre-Luc Dubois for Darcy Kuemper (no salary retained)

[McSuper]

I thought Washington bought cap friendly. Did they not use it to see PLD contract? Puzzling!

 

[Misery74]

I’ve never seen a player more instantly despised by the Kings fanbase than PLD.

He is the exact opposite kind of player you want on a contender.

Are the Kings a contender? Certainly not in Kuemper is in your rotation.

 

[Washed Up 29YearOld]

I'm guessing PLD jerseys at Kings games won't be particularly fashionable

 

[kylbaz]

When PLD reaches his peak and becomes a PPG power forward number 1 centre, then everyone is gonna look dumb in this thread.

And what about the guy believing that when it doesn't happen

 

[eco's bones]

Caps do not want a rebuild. Jets didn't want to rebuild and wanted to extend Dubois badly. He's not a perfect center who shows up all the time but he's very good when he's on his game.

Caps have probably seen what I saw. Usage/management issue and he was a pt/game player with Connor. Caps needed a center and seen what Dubois did at the WC's. It all fits for them. Could back fire but I think he does better by playing 20 min's a game.

The Caps are headed towards at least something of a rebuild like it or not. That said they haven't been depleting their development system like other teams that have been top teams for years and years. There's Leonard, Lapierre, McMichael, Miroshnichenko (sp?), Alexeyev and Fehervary and other younger players. They're not top end guys but they are guys who will help them to transition to a younger team post Ovechkin/Carlson. Because of that I don't think the Caps are going to collapse as happens to teams that string out and string out some more and more the playoff windows of their teams. On the other hand it's less likely that they're going to be making top 5 picks very often in the foreseeable future either.

 

[Norwegianoiler]

I thought Washington bought cap friendly. Did they not use it to see PLD contract? Puzzling!

They did it to hide the contract info immediately after the trade. Any day, now.

 

[King In The North]

When PLD reaches his peak and becomes a PPG power forward number 1 centre, then everyone is gonna look dumb in this thread.

If you read this without looking at the timestamp nor the title....you would never know which year or what team LOL

 

[chethejet]

Kings moved money tied up in a player that just wasn't what they hoped he would be. The money vs play is just not good. But the caps clearly need a younger center with some size to help with the retool.

 

[Mats26]

Kings made a bad situation into a slightly better one. Can't believe they didn't send a draft pick or retain on this. Byfield will finally get a chance to prove himself at center, Kuemper \ Portillo is not a bad tandem down the road. And plently of cap space to sign and fill out roster spots.

PLD should of never came to LA...can't believe Blake still has a job after that debacle of a trade.

Note: this could also mean Byfield wants big money now BTW.

 

[tkb81]

untradable ? the only option is a buy out? .... We all know Blake F'd up on the trade and contract .. but what a valiant effort to get out of the contract ... I would rather have a GM thats willing to take swings than just dumpster dive

 

[Pizza!Pizza!]

Is it just me or is it very odd that so many trades are happening while the finals are also still happening?

It's the normal pre-draft/free agency trade cycle, the bigger question is why did the NHL schedule the finals to bleed into the last week of June?

 

[Misery74]

Kings made a bad situation into a slightly better one. Can't believe they didn't send a draft pick or retain on this. Byfield will finally get a chance to prove himself at center, Kuemper \ Portillo is not a bad tandem down the road. And plently of cap space to sign and fill out roster spots.

PLD should of never came to LA...can't believe Blake still has a job after that debacle of a trade.

Note: this could also mean Byfield wants big money now BTW.

Kuemper is awful. Absolutely awful. Any tandem that includes him is very bad.

 

[KingsHockey24]

Are the Kings a contender? Certainly not in Kuemper is in your rotation.

Cam Talbot was apparently toast when he was in Ottawa but under the Kings system he was an All-Star putting up career best numbers.

95% of goalies thrive under us (Jack Campbell, Ben Scrivens, David Rittich, Jonathan Bernier, Jonas Enroth, Peter Budaj, oh and that Darcy Kuemper guy put up his best numbers while playing for us.)

 

[Misery74]

Cam Talbot was apparently toast when he was in Ottawa but under the Kings system he was an All-Star putting up career best numbers.

95% of goalies thrive under us (Jack Campbell, Ben Scrivens, David Rittich, Jonathan Bernier, Jonas Enroth, Peter Budaj, oh and that Darcy Kuemper guy put up his best numbers while playing for us.)

lol. What year was that?

Kuemper couldn’t even start in back to backs.

He will be bought out next summer.

 

[KingsHockey24]

lol. What year was that?

Kuemper couldn’t even start in back to backs.

He will be bought out next summer.

That's not a real big concern seeing that David Rittich put up a 2.15 GAA and a .921%

Good luck with PLD though, only 7 years left!

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Hockey is so weird I won't be shocked if PLD is pretty good in Washington. They've done well with making Strome into a solid player.

Strome was already doing good in Chicago though. People just didn't want to give him any credit because he played with Kane and DeBrincat.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Both Capfriendly and Puckpedia say if Dubois is bought out next year it's a 2/3 cap penalty. I think they are going to try and make it work for Ovechkin's decline and then ride it out for the rebuild. It's risky as hell but I wouldn't be shocked if it worked, immaturity/complacency can be fixed.

Pierre-Luc Dubois Buyout - NHL Contract Buyout, Salary cap impact | Puckpedia

Pierre-Luc Dubois buyout calculations. Find out the total cap impact of buying out a player any year of their current contract, including a detailed explanation of the buyout cap hit math involved.

www.puckpedia.com

 

[tkb81]

Kings made a bad situation into a slightly better one. Can't believe they didn't send a draft pick or retain on this. Byfield will finally get a chance to prove himself at center, Kuemper \ Portillo is not a bad tandem down the road. And plently of cap space to sign and fill out roster spots.

PLD should of never came to LA...can't believe Blake still has a job after that debacle of a trade.

Note: this could also mean Byfield wants big money now BTW.

he doesnt have the numbers for a big money contract now

 

[Hobnobs]

lol. What year was that?

Kuemper couldn’t even start in back to backs.

He will be bought out next summer.

And PLD can't even play back to back shifts. At least Kuemper gives a damn.

 

[Misery74]

And PLD can't even play back to back shifts. At least Kuemper gives a damn.

I agree, PLD looks like a shit sandwich. All we can do in Washington is hope he turns it around.

But just a heads up, Darcy Kuemper is really, really bad.

 

[HuskyBruinPride]

Well I went to read and very much so seems like it



Are we just going to ignore the baggage that PLD brings with him?

He’s a problem player, on a very expensive contract



Who’s writing him off based in 1 bad year?

Pretty much the majority of HF boards

 

[sxvnert]

Complete train wreck for the Caps.

 

[tny760]

Kings moved money tied up in a player that just wasn't what they hoped he would be. The money vs play is just not good. But the caps clearly need a younger center with some size to help with the retool.

PLD might be the smallest big man i've ever seen

he skates into the corners as upright as a pole and the slightest contact gets him off balance spinning in circles as the puck goes the other way. then he tops it off with this stupid miffed look on his face and goes straight to the bench

the guy has no idea how to protect the puck so his size is utterly useless

 

[BKarchitect]

Here’s another way to look at it from a Caps viewpoint, if you are searching for “why’s”. Add this is not to let them off the hook for signing Kuemper to a bad contract, but just like the Kings are trying to pivot (and seemingly being lauded for it) off a bad prior mistake, in a way, so are the Caps.

If you factor in Kuemper’s terrible deal headed the other way, what you left with in a pure exchange, from the Caps side, is this:

PLD age 26 season: $3,250,000
PLD age 27 season: $3,250,000
PLD age 28 season: $3,250,000

So for the first three years, the Caps are essentially getting a heavily retained PLD considering they punted Kuemper, who was probably in danger of even losing his backup job. Again - signing Kuemper in the first place, bad, for sure. But as a bigly negative value makeweight in his own right, it certainly makes this exchange more attractive for the Caps.

A “net” $3.25 x 3 on PLD is certainly a worthwhile gamble for a club somewhat mired in a middle ground abyss with a severe lack of pure offensive talent.

Ok, but what about the back end, when you are no longer having the cap offset of the deal you would have been carrying with Kuemper. That’s gonna hurt right? Well…maybe, but also maybe not as severely as one might think.

After the Kuemper deal expires, PLD will have finished his age 28 season, the Caps will have seen what he brings for three years and he will essentially be at the age that all prime UFA’s signed their bloated deals to.

So you’ll have PLD going into his age 29 season on an $8.5 x 4 deal. With whatever the cap has risen to for the 27-28 season. Now there’s a chance he could be barely hanging on and this is an albatross the Caps can’t shake. But I definitely think there’s a chance the back end of this isn’t nearly as bad as people think it will be. By that cap year for that contract, he probably only has to be a 60-65 point second line center, warts and all, to be inline with what inflation is gonna bring.

I get it - this is not a zero sum game and the Caps could have stapled some picks to Kuemper to get rid of him or eventually just bought him out. But they are also not in a great position to be able to unearth 25 year-old centers with the tools of PLD and dealing Kuemper the other way makes the net transaction far more palatable. It could entirely blow up and every fanbase that has experienced PLD says “told you”. But I get it from a Caps side.

 

[CanMerc]

Kings should wait for Capfriendly to go dark, then start shopping Kuemper… GMs won’t be able to check his stats then