State of the L.A. Kings
The Los Angeles Kings are living proof of how close “the top of the world” and “the bottom of the world” actually are to each other in the cosmic spectrum of the modern professional sports world.
At the conclusion of the 2014 Stanley Cup final, the Kings stood on the very precipice of sports achievement; Kings not only in actual name but also in literal deed, after pounding their way to their second NHL championship in just three seasons. Just one year later, the Kings hit rock bottom, somehow missing the postseason altogether despite an enormously talented roster and the sky-high expectations such personnel warranted.
We at Today’s Slapshot subscribe to the belief that championships in the NHL are rarely a fluke, and two championships in a three-year span can certainly not be defined as such. The only fluke is that LA missed the playoffs this past season. We are calling on the Kings fans to avoid panic — Los Angeles will be back in the mix before you can say Marcel Dionne.
Kings Top 5 Prospects (Scale to 10)
RW Adrian Kempe (7.5) — 6’2″ power forward plays a fast, north/south game and hits anything that moves, has a goal-scorer’s shot and 30+ goal upside at the NHL level.
RW/LW Valentin Zykov (7.0) — Russian winger plays a classic North American-style game, not offensively electrifying but does everything well and has a plus shot, growing into very good, goal-scoring second-liner.
LD Derek Forbort (7.0) — towering 6’5″ rearguard has a tremendous wingspan and plays a responsible game, limited offensive upside and not overly physical, but a solid second-pairing prospect.
C Nick Shore (7.0) — super-smart character center plays a complete, 200-foot game and never leaves anything on the ice, offers average size and offensive upside but could fill a valuable second/third line pivot role as early as next year.
RW Spencer Watson (6.5) — former 7th round steal is a bit smallish but simply has a scorer’s knack and touch around the net, many of these same things were once said about burgeoning star Tyler Johnson.
Organizational Strengths
Jonathan Quick is, along with Henrik Lundqvist and Carey Price, one of the top three goaltenders on the planet Earth and is signed well into the mid-2020s. As long as Quick is between the pipes and on top of his game, the Kings will be in the conversation as an elite NHL franchise.
Drew Doughty is a perennial Norris Trophy candidate and is simply a dominant player in every aspect of the game. He led the NHL in average ice time last season and the more he is out on the ice, the better he plays. Signed at a reasonable $7 million per through 2018-19, Doughty also has a unique ability to raise his game when it matters most.
After working his way into the conversation of elite NHL two-way centers over a spectacular half-decade, Anze Kopitar took a step back last season with the first true off-year of a brilliant career. We feel this is a fluke, and that Kopitar will be back among the elite in 2015-16.
That 70’s Line of Jeff Carter, Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson took a big step forward in 2014-15, dominating long stretches of games all season long. While Carter’s tantalizing talent is well-known to hockey pundits, Toffoli’s offensive upside is even higher that what he displayed last year while Pearson plays a very impressive all-around game.
The Kings are flush with physical, checking-line wingers who contribute at both ends of the ice. Jordan Nolan, Kyle Clifford and Dwight King are all players any NHL team would be lucky to send out on a third or fourth line and are extremely agitating and difficult to play against.
Organizational Weaknesses
The blueline as a unit never recovered from the loss of Slava Voynov last season. As Voynov’s personal and legal troubles escalated, it seemed more and more like Voynov’s NHL days were done. The retirement of Robyn Regehr thins the talent on the back end even more. LA has an outstanding nucleus on D with Doughty, Jake Muzzin and Alec Martinez, but they desperately need to address their lack of of blue line depth.
C Mike Richards went from impact player on a Stanley Cup champion to washed-up waste of $5.75 million in cap space in record time. The Kings will regret for some time their decision not to buy him out prior to last season. In order to get another team to take on his unwieldy contract (signed through 2020!) now, LA would be forced to cede several draft picks to sweeten the pot. It would be cheaper to just send him to astronaut school and ship him off into outer space to find Laika the space dog.
Speaking of cap room, the Kings don’t have much of it. They have almost $22 million tied up in Richards, Carter, Dustin Brown and Marian Gaborik through 2020. If they are to improve their roster as a whole, one of these players is likely to be traded. If the Kings cannot find a taker for Richards, longtime captain Brown might have to be the one to go. This also makes it quite unlikely that LA can resign UFAs Justin Williams or Andrej Sekera, who could become two of the most coveted free agents in the 2015 off-season.
The Kings prospect pool is not deep and lacks high-end future stars. Further complicating things is the fact that they dealt their 2016 first-round pick (along with top D prospect Roland McKeown) to Carolina in the Andrej Sekera deal. Armed with the #13 pick in a ridiculously talented 2015 NHL draft, Los Angeles GM Dean Lombardi has the pressure on him to hit a serious home run with the pick.
Trade Winds
The city of Los Angeles is no stranger to gossip, they are just not used to so much of it surrounding their hockey team. Can the Kings find a taker for Richards’ unwieldy contract? Will they have to give up a package of draft picks to accomplish this? Will they have to trade Dustin Brown instead?
Could the Kings get a good return on Dustin Brown?
Trading the Kings’ captain is an interesting proposition to explore. A gritty, two-way leader who is one of the fiercest hitters in the NHL, Brown’s offense has deteriorated to a third-liner’s production over the past two seasons. He will be owed a first-line salary of $5.875 million per year through 2021-22.
A young team with plenty of cap room looking for veteran leadership and a physical presence up front like Edmonton, Calgary or Buffalo could take a shot on Brown if the cost to acquire him is reasonable. In particular, Buffalo is overloaded with young, tradable talent and Brown hails from nearby Ithaca, New York.
Dean Lombardi has some difficult trade decisions to make come draft day, as well. If RW/C Travis Konecny falls to the No. 13 pick, rumors have both the Calgary Flames and Ottawa Senators obsessed with the high-scoring highlight-reel staple. It’s quite likely that LA could restock their system with an additional second-round pick by moving down two to five spots in the first round.
GM Dean Lombardi Draft Dossier
Dean Lombardi took over as general manager of the Los Angeles Kings in April of 2006 and there is no doubt he has become the greatest executive in the Kings’ history. Lombardi’s two Stanley Cups are an achievement which needs little explanation, and the tables were set for this success early on in his drafting career.
In only his second draft (2007) Lombardi had a pair of fourth round picks which he turned into key contributors on his championship teams, Alec Martinez (95th overall) and Dwight King (109th overall). Two rounds early, he made the steal of the 2007 draft, grabbing Wayne Simmonds 61st overall, a player who became a key component in the trade which brought the (once effective) Mike Richards to the City of Angels.
Alec Martinez was a steal for the Kings in the second round in 2007.
In 2008, Lombardi hit the jackpot with Drew Doughty (2nd overall) and later solidified his blue line with Slava Voynov (32nd overall). Rarely a year goes by without Lombardi making a later-round pick which is considered (later on) an absolute steal. In 2009, Kyle Clifford (35th overall), Linden Vey (96th overall) and Jordan Nolan (186th overall). In 2010, the downright robbery of Tyler Toffoli (47th overall). In 2013, we could not laud enough the fourth round larceny of Hudson Fasching (118th overall).
As early as last year, Lombardi turned a pair of normally-useless seventh-round picks into a pair of legitimate NHL prospects in Spencer Watson and Jacob Middleton.
As with all GMs, Lombardi has had hiccups. We are certain he would like to take back his pick of Colten Teubert (2008, 13th overall) with Erik Karlsson still on the board. And, though we like Derek Forbort (2010, 15th overall), the fact that Vladimir Tarasenko was taken with the very next pick makes Kings fans slap their foreheads a bit. Yet, overall, we feel that Lombardi’s draft record with the Kings is quite commendable.
Like many NHL GMs, Lombardi focuses most of his draft efforts in the CHL: of his 72 draft picks with the Kings, 45 (63%) have been out of the CHL. This reliance seems to have increased recently — in the 2014 draft a whopping seven out of Lombardi’s 10 picks were out of the OHL alone.
Still, it is not as if Lombardi lacks draft versatility: his seven picks out of the NCAA and nine out of USA high schools prove he is not unwilling to scout south of the border, while his eight European league selections show he also will look for future Kings overseas.
As with most GMs who focus in the CHL, a majority of Lombardi’s picks are of Canadian descent. Thirty-eight of his 72 picks (52%) percent fit that description, while another 19 of his picks (or 26%) hail from the USA. Over a span of seasons where many GMs shied from eastern Europe, Lombardi deserves kudos for drafting five players of Russian heritage (including fine picks like Voynov and Nikolay Prokhorkin) and three more from the Czech Republic.
After using his first pick on goaltenders and defensemen in five of his first six drafts, Lombardi seems to have flipped philosophies and has taken a winger with his first pick in the past three drafts. Seven of his nine top picks (78%) have been from the CHL but, again, last year Lombardi showed range by going to Sweden and making a (we think) very good first-round grab with Kempe (29th overall).
2015 Los Angeles Kings Draft Preview
We have typed these words so much that they almost seem to type themselves, but scouts are calling the 2015 NHL draft class the deepest and most talented in over a decade.
Kings fans can take heart that if their team was going to have a disappointing season, this was probably the best year to do it. They possess the No. 13 pick, which should have the talent of a top-10 pick most years, then the No. 43 pick, which should offer the upside of a borderline first-rounder most years. This is an excellent draft for Dean Lombardi to beef up his thinned-out prospect pipeline, and he will have no shortage of tantalizing options when the Kings are called up to the draft podium.
First Round (No. 13 overall)
Prognosticating picks gets difficult outside of the top 10 in the sense that there are more variables to consider. While we can be certain that names like McDavid, Eichel, Hanifin, Marner and Strome are off the board, is it possible that center with superstar upside like Mathew Barzal or Pavel Zacha could slip to No. 13?
We feel it is unlikely, but the draft is an unpredictable entity. We thought there would be no way Teuvo Teravavinen would be around with the No. 18 pick in 2012. We thought there would be no way Vladimir Tarasenko would be around with the No. 16 pick in 2010… and neither of those drafts were close to as deep as this one.
In the recent years of the Kings’ success, Lombardi usually finds his draft spot far lower than this June’s No. 13 slot. He has made a habit of grabbing kids that fall for inane reasons. He basically catches fallers, so to speak. Last June at the draft in Philadelphia, the ISS ranked Adrian Kempe No. 22. He fell to the Kings at No. 29, and Lombardi caught him. The ISS ranked defenseman Roland McKeown at No. 23, Lombardi caught him well into the second round at No. 50 overall.
In 2013, one season prior, the Kings first pick was all the way down at No. 37. When ISS No. 19 skater Valentin Zykov slid down that far due to concerns of his, uh… Russianness — Lombardi made another great grab.
How does this relate to 2015? Well, if Barzal (electrifying skater/passer seen as hybrid of Datsyuk/Giroux) or Zacha (6’3-215 beast with blazing shot and skating) fall due to do superficial and transient criticisms raised against them (Barzal: injury prone season, Zacha: called undisciplined and selfish by critics), you can bet the Kings will grab them.
That being said, we at TSS are giving more credit to the teams drafting above the Kings, and in our totally super-awesome two-round mock draft, we have Barzal going No. 6 (NJ) and Zacha going No. 9 (SJ). But fear not, Kings faithful, we feel there is one more center/wing with superstar upside that will be available when the Kings go up to the podium.
Youngstown Phantoms’ (USHL) C/LW Kyle Connor is a dynamic offensive player with absolutely extraordinary upside. He shredded the USHL for 80 points in just 56 games by virtue of, according to Future Considerations: “hands of gold and oozes skill with the puck”.
He is ranked as highly as No. 6 overall in this top-flight draft class by Craig Button of tsn.ca — Button believes Connor’s future to be on the wing, but he believes the Michigan-native has the talent to be one of the top wings in the NHL. Connor does everything at high speed, whether it be his beautiful skating, his visionary playmaking or his dazzling stickhandling.
Connor shot up our own draft rankings all season long, we always loved his offensive potential but the grit and two-way play which he displayed more and more throughout the season really opened our eyes to what an outstanding player he can become.
We feel Kyle Connor will be available when the Kings pick at No. 13. We also feel Dean Lombardi is not going to let this dynamic talent slip through his fingers.
Second Round (No. 43 overall) and beyond
If a highly-ranked prospect should fall to the mid-40s when the Kings have their second pick, we feel Lombardi will return to his recent draft pattern and grab them. In the TSS two-round mock we had them taking one such player in LD Gabriel Carlsson, a towering but reed-thin 6’5″ left-shooting defenseman who enjoyed a solid season for Linkoping of the Swedish league.
Carlsson is a bit of a project, as he needs to fill out at least 30 pounds of muscle onto his 185-pound frame and eliminate his tendency to turn the puck over, but his mix of size and mobility are at a premium on the modern NHL blue line. The ISS has Carlsson ranked at No. 30, but we have also seen him ranked in the No. 50 range and he is clearly a long-term project, so we can see him as a possible draft-day faller.
As Lombardi lets other GMs reach for under-ranked players they feel have big upside and then catches the players that fall as a result, Carlsson would seem to fit this pattern. Other players who could fall and entice the Kings at #43 include shifty offensive Waterloo, USHL LW/C Tom Novak, huge and bruising Slovakian RD Erik Cernak and high-octane Niagara LD Vince Dunn.
In later rounds, it is safe to expect Lombardi will repeat his usual patterns of catching draft-day sliders, especially players who have played in the CHL.
In Conclusion
The Los Angeles Kings are not a team in decline, they simply had an off-year in 2014-15. Though the losses of Slava Voynov and Jarret Stoll due to off-ice problems and a semi-tight cap situation should hamper their ability to improve dramatically, a bounce-back year by Anze Kopitar should be all it takes to get LA back into the Western Conference playoff mix.
After all, the top of the world and bottom of the world are closer in proximity in the sports world than we are often led to believe.
Agree? Disagree? Feel free to use the comments section listed below or follow me on Twitter: @StIves72.
Want to read any other of my ridiculously in-depth team-by-team draft previews? You can find like a dozen of them right here.