Portillo signed

rinkrat

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The @LAKings have signed goaltender Erik Portillo to a three-year contract worth an average annual value (AAV) of $783,333 through the 2026-27 season.
 
Good signing. It never hurts to have depth at goal for the Kings. Kuemper may be a slight upgrade over Talbot but I'm not certain he's the same good caliber goalie he was in years past. Rittich has shown flashes of being a capable starter last season but still feels like a backup, and as for Copley, he's pretty much expendable at this point.
 
My brain is still confused that someone can be Swedish and have the name Erik Portillo. :mhihi: ;)

Yeah, Portillo is certainly not a surname one can associate with for a Swede unless he's got Italian, Latin, or Hispanic ancestry. And if it turns out he doesn't come from any of their lineages, I would be greatly surprised.
 
Nice! I was hoping we'd try to get Askarov but Portillo is potential starter material.

I hope you weren't hoping to get Askarov for the price that SJS paid. Basically two 1st rounders for a netminder who, statistically speaking, wasn't at Portillo's level, especially in the playoffs...where Grosenick outplayed him.

Hype is a dangerous thing.

Great signing. I'm guessing it wasn't trivial to sell him an idea of a 3 year deal with 2 other young, talented goalies in the pipeline. Unlike Cal disaster, this is the best possible scenario you could hope for. The Kings now have 3 young, very talented, waiver-exempt, very affordable goalies in the pipeline, and only Kuemper on a longer term, expensive contract, thus they have a lot of flexibility in goal moving forward - 2 young-ins in the AHL and 1 with the big boys with Kuemper until the situation clears itself regarding who is worthy of the NHL spot and a more lucrative contract (and I'm sure we won't be seeing any more 5 million, 3 year second contracts for goalies with half a good-ish season behind them). What a contrast to Cal's 5 million and JQ's 5,8 wombo combo in 22-23...

(I'm still baffled at the contract that Cal got...is his agent a brother of someone in the organization or something? Or did he have some incriminating evidence of someone in his pocket?)
 
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I hope you weren't hoping to get Askarov for the price that SJS paid. Basically two 1st rounders for a netminder who, statistically speaking, wasn't at Portillo's level, especially in the playoffs...where Grosenick outplayed him.

Hype is a dangerous thing.

Great signing. I'm guessing it wasn't trivial to sell him an idea of a 3 year deal with 2 other young, talented goalies in the pipeline. Unlike Cal disaster, this is the best possible scenario you could hope for. The Kings now have 3 young, very talented, waiver-exempt, very affordable goalies in the pipeline, and only Kuemper on a longer term, expensive contract, thus they have a lot of flexibility in goal moving forward - 2 young-ins in the AHL and 1 with the big boys with Kuemper until the situation clears itself regarding who is worthy of the NHL spot and a more lucrative contract (and I'm sure we won't be seeing any more 5 million, 3 year second contracts for goalies with half a good-ish season behind them). What a contrast to Cal's 5 million and JQ's 5,8 wombo combo in 22-23...

(I'm still baffled at the contract that Cal got...is his agent a brother of someone in the organization or something? Or did he have some incriminating evidence of someone in his pocket?)
Yeah, Nashville did a great job hyping up that goaltender. Then turn around and extend their starter to setup the trade of Askarov. The AHL numbers do not lie, and Askarov had played ony 2-3 games in the NHL? I could never figure out why he was such a high profile trade target.
 
Yeah, Nashville did a great job hyping up that goaltender. Then turn around and extend their starter to setup the trade of Askarov. The AHL numbers do not lie, and Askarov had played ony 2-3 games in the NHL? I could never figure out why he was such a high profile trade target.
It's the "Bernier Effect"
 
To be fair, Bernier was a very good goaltender. Whether or not he ultimately lived up to it, he deserved the hype.

Unfortunately for him Quick got hot and never looked back.
Bernier was neither strong enough nor talented enough to take any team to the promised land. He just didn’t have that winner mentality.
 
Bernier was neither strong enough nor talented enough to take any team to the promised land. He just didn’t have that winner mentality.
He definitely had the talent and a long track record of success prior to the NHL (Guy Lafleur Trophy, Baz Bastien Memorial Award) and posted 2.78 GAA / .912 SV% over 404 NHL games playing in front of some pretty mixed defenses over his career. If you think that equates to a lack of enough talent to win the Stanley Cup, they I simply have to disagree. Lesser goalies than he have won the Cup as a starter.

Winning mentality? I'd have to disagree with that as well, but I will agree that he wasn't able to find another level come playoff time like Quick was - but he also had very limited opportunity to do so over his NHL career.

End of day, I stand behind my point that he was a very good goaltender, and the hype he had coming into the NHL draft was warranted.
 
He definitely had the talent and a long track record of success prior to the NHL (Guy Lafleur Trophy, Baz Bastien Memorial Award) and posted 2.78 GAA / .912 SV% over 404 NHL games playing in front of some pretty mixed defenses over his career. If you think that equates to a lack of enough talent to win the Stanley Cup, they I simply have to disagree. Lesser goalies than he have won the Cup as a starter.

Winning mentality? I'd have to disagree with that as well, but I will agree that he wasn't able to find another level come playoff time like Quick was - but he also had very limited opportunity to do so over his NHL career.

End of day, I stand behind my point that he was a very good goaltender, and the hype he had coming into the NHL draft was warranted.
And I stand by my statement that he did not have the fire in him to win a Cup. And his lack of dominating physical strength was very apparent in scrums around the goal. The Kings didn’t just hand the starting position to Quick. He took it with talent, body strength, but most of all with strength of will. Bernier was anointed but Quick was actually the hero.
 
I only witnessed a small sample size of Portillo and it was during that Firebird’s series. I’m not sure if the Firebirds were just more dominant than the Reign, as not one of the Reign players stepped up, or if Portillo just had a bad series as many soft goals were let in. With that said, I didn’t see one NHL caliber player on the Reign that played in that series and that is a huge concern. And for this coming season, they are hoping that at least three will make the Kings roster. If the Kings best AHL players are being dominated in the AHL playoffs, how do they take the next step into the NHL?
 
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