Hips Post Season Epilogue

[Kurisu]

This is why I wondered why we ever hired TM.

 

[kIngsX]

I posted this in another thread, but thought the folks here would want to see it so am double posting it. In the event it was not seen in the other. It is a good read, found the link on twitter. I agree with a lot of it.

LA Kings: It’s Time To Get With The Times

That was a good article, thank you. For those who subscribe to The Athletic, there’s another good article by Eric Stephens about 5 options left for the Kings this offseason.

Spoiler alert: they’re not good options.

I’ve railed on Dubious & Fiala quite a bit, but that doesn’t make them bad hockey players. Fiala can definitely shoot the puck, & Dubois is a good playmaker. They just aren’t the type of players that fit into the Kings culture and style of play as it’s been established under Blake & Luc. Which makes me question why they were even brought in.

It suggests that somewhere along the path, Blake lost sense of the vision he once had for this team, if he ever had one at all. Now, a once-enviable farm system is depleted, our prospects are limited, and our core is aging. There is no longer a path forward for Blake. That said, I have no idea what his successor should do either

 

[Bollocks]

I don't really get all the doom and gloom and a board-wide bashing of Blake all of a sudden. He wasn't perfect, far from it, but what were the alternatives?

First of all, had the upper management wanted a full rebuild, they would instruct and expect Rob to do so. But they obviously wanted to have a competitive team battling for playoffs because that's what made financial sense to them. It also made sense for them to lock up DD forever. Thank god for Desjardins hire which sparked the retool and got us QB and Clarke. I think it might've been a genius self-sabotage actually.

And that's all there is to it, really. Who'd think a rookie GM would have no authority over upper management, eh?

Second of all, while Rob clearly made some obvious mistakes - signing Cal, trading for PLD, Korpisalo rental...I'm not even going to mention Kovalchuk because that was a clear dumpster dive move that at the time appeased the upper management - what was that he did wrong to not make this team into a real contender? No one would be able to do that. Look at the teams that are dominating the NHL nowadays and tell me in which universe there was a GM available with a proven track record of doing that in a way the upper management would agree to.

On the other hand, I think the retool he did was very good, some of the contracts he signed were fantastic and he showed very good amount of patience/judgement/trust in development team with many of our top prospects that he could very well flip for some has-beens had he been desperate and impatient and foolish enough. QB, Gabe, Turcotte, Akil...ok, he did trade Gabe for a bad return as it turns out, but he sold high regardless.

To add to the above 2 to 4 - Kempe, Moore, Danault, Arvidsson, Spence, Durzi, Mikey, Talbot, Rittich, Copley - off the top of my head - are all good to very good signings, trades, situation handling etc.

The team is - contrary to belief of many right now - not completely devoid of young talent or good trade chips. Compared to what DL inherited this is a space ship. There are still decent chances this team can build its top 6 and top 4 from within in a couple of years. How many teams on a result decline have that?

Rob can find success in the future as a GM - if he will learn from his own mistakes with the Kings and also learn to emphasize more on buipding a team with certain identity. But alas, it won't be with the Kings...or at least it shouldn't be.

The future moves od upper management/team ownership will speak volumes of what the future holds for this team. I really hope a proper rebuild is in order with trading away DD, Danault, PLD (while it's still time), Fiala...and hopefully the next years team has Turcotte, Akil, Fagemo and Clarke ready to make a proper impact along with QB.

 

[Statue4Deano]

I don't really get all the doom and gloom and a board-wide bashing of Blake all of a sudden. He wasn't perfect, far from it, but what were the alternatives?

First of all, had the upper management wanted a full rebuild, they would instruct and expect Rob to do so. But they obviously wanted to have a competitive team battling for playoffs because that's what made financial sense to them. It also made sense for them to lock up DD forever. Thank god for Desjardins hire which sparked the retool and got us QB and Clarke. I think it might've been a genius self-sabotage actually.

And that's all there is to it, really. Who'd think a rookie GM would have no authority over upper management, eh?

Second of all, while Rob clearly made some obvious mistakes - signing Cal, trading for PLD, Korpisalo rental...I'm not even going to mention Kovalchuk because that was a clear dumpster dive move that at the time appeased the upper management - what was that he did wrong to not make this team into a real contender? No one would be able to do that. Look at the teams that are dominating the NHL nowadays and tell me in which universe there was a GM available with a proven track record of doing that in a way the upper management would agree to.

On the other hand, I think the retool he did was very good, some of the contracts he signed were fantastic and he showed very good amount of patience/judgement/trust in development team with many of our top prospects that he could very well flip for some has-beens had he been desperate and impatient and foolish enough. QB, Gabe, Turcotte, Akil...ok, he did trade Gabe for a bad return as it turns out, but he sold high regardless.

To add to the above 2 to 4 - Kempe, Moore, Danault, Arvidsson, Spence, Durzi, Mikey, Talbot, Rittich, Copley - off the top of my head - are all good to very good signings, trades, situation handling etc.

The team is - contrary to belief of many right now - not completely devoid of young talent or good trade chips. Compared to what DL inherited this is a space ship. There are still decent chances this team can build its top 6 and top 4 from within in a couple of years. How many teams on a result decline have that?

Rob can find success in the future as a GM - if he will learn from his own mistakes with the Kings and also learn to emphasize more on buipding a team with certain identity. But alas, it won't be with the Kings...or at least it shouldn't be.

The future moves od upper management/team ownership will speak volumes of what the future holds for this team. I really hope a proper rebuild is in order with trading away DD, Danault, PLD (while it's still time), Fiala...and hopefully the next years team has Turcotte, Akil, Fagemo and Clarke ready to make a proper impact along with QB.

You just made the case for both Blake and Luc to be shown the door.

 

[hokiecat]

I don't really get all the doom and gloom and a board-wide bashing of Blake all of a sudden. He wasn't perfect, far from it, but what were the alternatives?

First of all, had the upper management wanted a full rebuild, they would instruct and expect Rob to do so. But they obviously wanted to have a competitive team battling for playoffs because that's what made financial sense to them. It also made sense for them to lock up DD forever. Thank god for Desjardins hire which sparked the retool and got us QB and Clarke. I think it might've been a genius self-sabotage actually.

And that's all there is to it, really. Who'd think a rookie GM would have no authority over upper management, eh?

Second of all, while Rob clearly made some obvious mistakes - signing Cal, trading for PLD, Korpisalo rental...I'm not even going to mention Kovalchuk because that was a clear dumpster dive move that at the time appeased the upper management - what was that he did wrong to not make this team into a real contender? No one would be able to do that. Look at the teams that are dominating the NHL nowadays and tell me in which universe there was a GM available with a proven track record of doing that in a way the upper management would agree to.

On the other hand, I think the retool he did was very good, some of the contracts he signed were fantastic and he showed very good amount of patience/judgement/trust in development team with many of our top prospects that he could very well flip for some has-beens had he been desperate and impatient and foolish enough. QB, Gabe, Turcotte, Akil...ok, he did trade Gabe for a bad return as it turns out, but he sold high regardless.

To add to the above 2 to 4 - Kempe, Moore, Danault, Arvidsson, Spence, Durzi, Mikey, Talbot, Rittich, Copley - off the top of my head - are all good to very good signings, trades, situation handling etc.

The team is - contrary to belief of many right now - not completely devoid of young talent or good trade chips. Compared to what DL inherited this is a space ship. There are still decent chances this team can build its top 6 and top 4 from within in a couple of years. How many teams on a result decline have that?

Rob can find success in the future as a GM - if he will learn from his own mistakes with the Kings and also learn to emphasize more on buipding a team with certain identity. But alas, it won't be with the Kings...or at least it shouldn't be.

The future moves od upper management/team ownership will speak volumes of what the future holds for this team. I really hope a proper rebuild is in order with trading away DD, Danault, PLD (while it's still time), Fiala...and hopefully the next years team has Turcotte, Akil, Fagemo and Clarke ready to make a proper impact along with QB.

First off, did we not do a full rebuild? We were the 4th worst team in 2020 after being 2nd worst in 2019. We were 7th worst in 2021 but were 1 loss away from being 4th worst (tons of teams tanked it during the short season). Kings fans had 3 years of dreadful hockey. We were just lucky it was during COVID so we sucked during partial seasons. Yes the Kings kept Kopi and Doughty during the down period (and Brown too) but this was a bad team.

Since last spring Blake has consistently crapped the bed. Getting Korpi was a bust. He overpaid for Gavrikov by the time you figured out the total cost to trade for him and then clear salaries to extend him. He should have just done a buy once cry once on Chychrun. The PLD deal was a disaster. He traded guys like Durzi and Walker for pennies on the dollar to implement his vision for the roster. He wanted to clear the prospec logjam (makes sense but also a problem of his own making by not doing that sooner and marinating the prospects too long) and be 3 deep with excellent centers and have a reliable top-4. Unfortunately we all know how that turned out. PLD is the worst contract in the NHL and the Kings have a top-4 with only 1 good puck mover and he's no Makar or Hughes. Blake went all in on a "cup or bust roster" which is worse than the prior year's roster

In addition to that he never once during the rebuild/retool phase tried to weaponize cap space. The Kings never got a single draft pick for taking a bad contract during that time. Smart GMs use every avenue available to them. Do you remember when Carolina took on Marleau's bad contract from Toronto? That is how they got Seth Jarvis. Winning teams leave no stone unturned while failures like the Kings and Leafs will shed assets to get rid of problem contracts like Cal and Marleau. Both the Kings and Leafs are going to be stuck in the mode of being perennial playoff teams which lose in the first round.

The drafting and development has been mediocre. Maybe the Kings should have different people in those roles; perhaps people besides former teammates and ex-Kings. It doesn't feel like much of a meritocracy. The Kings have slow tracked almost every prospect and aside from Byfield have pretty much zero IMPACT players from the draft. By impact players, I mean guys who are top 6 and not just NHL players.
2017 draft: Vilardi top 6 and traded for box of rocks; JAD = replacement level; Mikey = top-4 D; rest busts
2018 draft: Kupari mediocre and traded, Akil Thomas finally looks to be NHL player in bottom 6 role (7 GP, 3g, 1a). Rest busts
2019 draft: Turcotte finally looks to be bottom 6 guy, Bjornfot was a bust, Kaliyev has washed out of the org, Fagemo is NHL/AHL tweener, and Spence looks to be a good bottom pairing guy
2020 draft: QB is legit impact player with jury still out if he will be very good or better than that. Faber traded (will be amazing). Laf is middle 6 winger
2021 draft: Clarke tearing it up in juniors and AHL; hopefully impact player.

In short, the fact that the Kings have gone through the rebuild/retool cycle and Doughty and Kopitar are still the best players is rather damning. We've all been very lucky that those 2 have been able to sustain greatness far longer than the average player.

Yes, very good moves with Arvy, Danault, Moore, etc. That is why we are a playoff team.

 

[santiclaws]

One more gem by Blake: overruling his scouts to select Turcotte over Zegras in the draft.

 

[Bollocks]

You just made the case for both Blake and Luc to be shown the door.

Of course, that would be the best for this team, by now it should be undoubtedly clear what this team needs if they want them to be proper contenders relatively soon.

I'm not saying they should stay. I'm saying many LGKers demonize Rob too much given the situation and context od his tenure. And are way too gloomy about the state this team is in...

 

[Bollocks]

One more gem by Blake: overruling his scouts to select Turcotte over Zegras in the draft.

Hindsight. Blake drafted a leader and a winner, exactly what this team lacked, but we were very unfortunate regarding his injuries. Had Alex been luckier and also developed into half thr player he's supposed to be Rob wouldn't even trade for PLD. Let that sink in...

This isn't like Dean who failed to adapt his drafting preferences for years, leaving the Kings with no (esp. offensive) higher end talent in the pipeline...

Anyhow...y'all can be generals after the battle, use hindsight for everything he did, or you can "I told you so" me regarding some stuff. I'm just telling you that you all had too high of expectations of a rookie GM who wasn't given free and full reign of a team that lives from casual fanbase.

Canadian teams can't buy a damn Cup for 30 years and you expect to be up there with the best for 5 years every 5 years ever since Dean showed you how nice it is there. For 3 years.

PS: I will "I told you so" if Rob gets another gig and excels at it.

 

[Rog or Reg?]

Playing the same broken record for the past three seasons...

...we need bigger players. We get pushed around in the crease way too easily and we lose way too many board battles and one-on-ones.

I love Blake Lizotte and Trevor Moore, but we aren't going to win any Cups with a team full of midgets.

The PLD trade was an unmitigated disaster.

Blake needs to go. Time for a major change in philosophy and personnel.

I think I could have re-posted this from the end of last season. And the season before. I just hope I'm not posting this again in 12 months. I could literally cut-and-paste this at the end of each of the last three seasons.

Los Angeles is a large sports market city. Based purely on market size, we are Number Two behind New York and ahead of Chicago. Our owners have deep pockets. Very deep. All the other major sports teams in this city have won championships recently. The Kings are now a full decade past their last championship.

Are the Kings a bad team? Hell no. We are very close to being a very good team. But right now we are a mediocre, middle-of-the-pack team, and mediocrity ain't gonna cut it here. Not in this town.

Blake has had seven years to steer this team to top-tier status, and we're stuck in neutral. Time to put someone else behind the wheel.

We can start by adding bigger players with more grit. And if I ever see PLD gliding around the ice in a Kings jersey again, it will be too soon. He has as much grit as newborn kitten fur.

 

[santiclaws]

Hindsight. Blake drafted a leader and a winner, exactly what this team lacked, but we were very unfortunate regarding his injuries. Had Alex been luckier and also developed into half thr player he's supposed to be Rob wouldn't even trade for PLD. Let that sink in...

This isn't like Dean who failed to adapt his drafting preferences for years, leaving the Kings with no (esp. offensive) higher end talent in the pipeline...

Anyhow...y'all can be generals after the battle, use hindsight for everything he did, or you can "I told you so" me regarding some stuff. I'm just telling you that you all had too high of expectations of a rookie GM who wasn't given free and full reign of a team that lives from casual fanbase.

Canadian teams can't buy a damn Cup for 30 years and you expect to be up there with the best for 5 years every 5 years ever since Dean showed you how nice it is there. For 3 years.

PS: I will "I told you so" if Rob gets another gig and excels at it.

If you overrule your scouts, who have seen both players in person multiple times while you haven't, you damn well better be right. The injuries were not unpredictable; he already had an injury history and he plays an aggressive game despite having a small frame.

 

[Madness20721]

Playing the same broken record for the past three seasons...

...we need bigger players. We get pushed around in the crease way too easily and we lose way too many board battles and one-on-ones.

I love Blake Lizotte and Trevor Moore, but we aren't going to win any Cups with a team full of midgets.

The PLD trade was an unmitigated disaster.

Blake needs to go. Time for a major change in philosophy and personnel.

I think I could have re-posted this from the end of last season. And the season before. I just hope I'm not posting this again in 12 months. I could literally cut-and-paste this at the end of each of the last three seasons.

Los Angeles is a large sports market city. Based purely on market size, we are Number Two behind New York and ahead of Chicago. Our owners have deep pockets. Very deep. All the other major sports teams in this city have won championships recently. The Kings are now a full decade past their last championship.

Are the Kings a bad team? Hell no. We are very close to being a very good team. But right now we are a mediocre, middle-of-the-pack team, and mediocrity ain't gonna cut it here. Not in this town.

Blake has had seven years to steer this team to top-tier status, and we're stuck in neutral. Time to put someone else behind the wheel.

We can start by adding bigger players with more grit. And if I ever see PLD gliding around the ice in a Kings jersey again, it will be too soon. He has as much grit as newborn kitten fur.

Deep pockets mean nothing with a salary cap league.