FA 2025 (lets get the discussions in one thread)

hokiecat said:
Aside from losing our best defenseman and one of the few puck movers that we had on defense, little was lost. The only possible justification is that the Kings blueline prospect pool is so depleted for the next 2-3 years that Holland figured he'd extend the bottom pair for an extended duration so that he wouldn't have to waste a future summer signing some other pylons.

This guy gets it: It's Not the Taxes -- It's the LA Kings

Prime free agents are not going to want to come here and play boring ass hockey.
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Defensively, Dumoulin+Ceci are most likely better than Gavrikov+Spence. Offensively, Clarke MUST be exposed to a bigger responsibility as a top 4 D-man. If he doesn't succeed in at least matching Spence's minutes and offensive ability, we're screwed anyways and it's all moot. If he does at least match him, the Kings haven't lost much in offensive capability from the back-end since Spence was hardly used in the playoffs anyways.

What we got was quite far from what we wanted and what was hyped, but I'm willing to wait until seeing this team play before passing too much judgement...
 
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symbology said:
It was the same before the two cups, but DL had assets and went the trade route to land the necessary players to win it all.
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No major UFAs signed here even after the Cups. Scuderi wanted to go back east after winning. Kings were hardly removed from two Cups but Lucic and Sekara bailed first chance they got.
 
Bollocks said:
Defensively, Dumoulin+Ceci are most likely better than Gavrikov+Spence. Offensively, Clarke MUST be exposed to a bigger responsibility as a top 4 D-man. If he doesn't succeed in at least matching Spence's minutes and offensive ability, we're screwed anyways and it's all moot. If he does at least match him, the Kings haven't lost much in offensive capability from the back-end since Spence was hardly used in the playoffs anyways.

What we got was quite far from what we wanted and what was hyped, but I'm willing to wait until seeing this team play before passing too much judgement...
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July 1, 2026 - 5 Defensemen on the Kings roster will have No Trade Clauses. Ages of those d-men? 36, 35, 34, 32, 28.

There’s painting yourself into a corner and then there’s what Holland did this summer with the blueline.
 
Statue4Deano said:
Not even a rumor. Holland said it a few times.

It’ll be very interesting to see who long Hiller’s leash is next season.
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Im guessing pretty short, especially since his contract is not very long and he's presumably being paid at near the bottom of the scale, so paying him to not coach will not hurt as much.
 
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Statue4Deano said:
July 1, 2026 - 5 Defensemen on the Kings roster will have No Trade Clauses. Ages of those d-men? 36, 35, 34, 32, 28.

There’s painting yourself into a corner and then there’s what Holland did this summer with the blueline.
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Can't argue with that. So far it all seems like very half-@ssing it, and I'm very hesitant about him delving into the trade market and potentially giving up too much for too little, same as in the UFA market...thus sacrificing our already very thin assets for the future, too.
 
Clif said:
No major UFAs signed here even after the Cups. Scuderi wanted to go back east after winning. Kings were hardly removed from two Cups but Lucic and Sekara bailed first chance they got.
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That Lucic trade and how he walked away as a UFA was maybe the true unraveling point for Lombardi’s Kings career.

Ultimately he overpaid for the platonic ideal of a Dean Lombardi player. Big, mean, physical, leader on and off the ice but the rest of the team just wasn’t good enough to get out of the 1st round.

Dean threw a Hail Mary and it was intercepted at the 15 yard line.
 
Statue4Deano said:
That Lucic trade and how he walked away as a UFA was maybe the true unraveling point for Lombardi’s Kings career.

Ultimately he overpaid for the platonic ideal of a Dean Lombardi player. Big, mean, physical, leader on and off the ice but the rest of the team just wasn’t good enough to get out of the 1st round.

Dean threw a Hail Mary and it was intercepted at the 15 yard line.
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Very well put. Was a shame because that was a fun season. Or maybe less fun than I remember…Toffoli’s Boston goal looms large that year.
 
Statue4Deano said:
That Lucic trade and how he walked away as a UFA was maybe the true unraveling point for Lombardi’s Kings career.

Ultimately he overpaid for the platonic ideal of a Dean Lombardi player. Big, mean, physical, leader on and off the ice but the rest of the team just wasn’t good enough to get out of the 1st round.

Dean threw a Hail Mary and it was intercepted at the 15 yard line.
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I was annoyed at the trade mostly because we had already given up 1 first rounder for 2 months of Sekera but we could still pick in the upcoming draft. But Dean traded it for Lucic (with salary retention) when we could have had Kyle Calder. Having him score 40 for a decade would have been nice with 20/20 hindsight. But more likely we would have drafted like Boston. They had 3 picks back to back to back and got almost nothing of consequence that year.
 
Bollocks said:
Defensively, Dumoulin+Ceci are most likely better than Gavrikov+Spence. Offensively, Clarke MUST be exposed to a bigger responsibility as a top 4 D-man. If he doesn't succeed in at least matching Spence's minutes and offensive ability, we're screwed anyways and it's all moot. If he does at least match him, the Kings haven't lost much in offensive capability from the back-end since Spence was hardly used in the playoffs anyways.

What we got was quite far from what we wanted and what was hyped, but I'm willing to wait until seeing this team play before passing too much judgement...
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Ooof, I'm not sure I agree with the first sentence there. I can hope, but that seems a stretch.
 
hokiecat said:
I was annoyed at the trade mostly because we had already given up 1 first rounder for 2 months of Sekera but we could still pick in the upcoming draft. But Dean traded it for Lucic (with salary retention) when we could have had Kyle Calder. Having him score 40 for a decade would have been nice with 20/20 hindsight. But more likely we would have drafted like Boston. They had 3 picks back to back to back and got almost nothing of consequence that year.
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What annoyed me the most about that trade is when we traded Jones. Boston already had Rask so of course Wilson already had the next trade ready and he went to the Guppies immediately. Jones owned the Kings for years! And then we had to see the this happened again with Quick two years ago…
 
hokiecat said:
I was annoyed at the trade mostly because we had already given up 1 first rounder for 2 months of Sekera but we could still pick in the upcoming draft. But Dean traded it for Lucic (with salary retention) when we could have had Kyle Calder. Having him score 40 for a decade would have been nice with 20/20 hindsight. But more likely we would have drafted like Boston. They had 3 picks back to back to back and got almost nothing of consequence that year.
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Kings were rumored to be very interested in Barzal if they held onto the pick. Sure would be nice to have a 28 year old 1st line Center right about now…
 
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In case you're wondering how the Kings physically stack up vs. the rest of the league:

Elite Prospects - Team Comparison in NHL

Compare average height, weight and age in NHL.
www.eliteprospects.com www.eliteprospects.com

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Keep in mind this is without Laf on the roster.
 
hokiecat said:
I was annoyed at the trade mostly because we had already given up 1 first rounder for 2 months of Sekera but we could still pick in the upcoming draft. But Dean traded it for Lucic (with salary retention) when we could have had Kyle Calder. Having him score 40 for a decade would have been nice with 20/20 hindsight. But more likely we would have drafted like Boston. They had 3 picks back to back to back and got almost nothing of consequence that year.
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Kyle Calder?? You mean score 40 IN a decade? 🤪 (You probably mean Kyle Connor?)

Ice Rhino said:
Ooof, I'm not sure I agree with the first sentence there. I can hope, but that seems a stretch.
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Gavrikov and Dumoulin are basically the same players from what I'm reading, it's just that Dumoulin is older...BUT he also has more winning PO experience. And Ceci has been deep in the playoffs a lot, too, is significantly bigger than Spence and likely better defensively...I'd worry more about offensive "prowess" of this pairing, but both players were put into more defensive roles throughout their career which doesn't mean they have wooden hands at all. Offensive numbers of Ceci are on-par with Spence. Not sure about advanced metrics, though...

In a way it's probably a wash altogether. Gavrikov+Spence = 8.7million, Dumoulin+Ceci=8.5 million, but the bonus is shorter term for one and malus longer term for the other. But they have much more playoff experience and one has better size while neither are pylons.

Let's also not forget Gavrikov wasn't as highly touted as he was after 2 seasons with the Kings, which by all accounts means that the Kings' system could boost Dumoulin+Ceci's performance, too. If the coach and the system stay the same throughout their stay with this team...which seems unlikely. But for next season, probably yes.
 
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