Yahoo: Are The Kings In Decline?

[PuckinUgly57]

Article that was posted 2 days ago, trying to do my part to keep us moooks entertained as the days of summer wind down and we are getting close to hockey season:

Are the Los Angeles Kings in decline? (Trending Topics) | Puck Daddy - Yahoo Sports

My thoughts:

1. Lambert is an idiot. This guy is wrong almost as much as Scott Turdside, who got egg on his face the last few years when he opined that the Kings were a fluke. Lambert pretty much contradicts himself throughout this article.

2. The answer is no. Last season was a weird season all around for LA, there was never any synergy where the team was running on all cylinders for any extended period of time. You can say that 8-10 game win streak in Feb or whatever, but that was about it and it was way too late into the season to have that kind of sustained play.

They missed the POs by 3-4 points while dealing with a patchwork defense, all kinds of issues with Voynov and Richards, in cap limbo for a while because of Voynov not allowing them to make any moves, injuries to defenders that were long term and overlapped, etc.

If anything was a fluke, it was the Kings missing the playoffs. I think we will see them return to the post season again and I'm no betting man but I can assure you teams will not be happy about that.

 

[Deader2818]

Its funny to be to really bring up Quick's age since goalies tend to age a lot better than any other positions. Hell most goalies dont even become a starter till their mid to late 20s.

 

[Deader2818]

I was also thinking about the line up and the media seems to think we have taken alot of steps back but

Lucic-Kopitar-Gaborik
Pearson-Carter-Toffoli
King-Lewis-Brown
Clifford-Shore-Nolan.

The forward lines really havent change much. Williams gets replaced with Lucic and while I loved Williams he is getting older. Lucic has been pretty impressive in the playoffs as well.

Lewis to me is an upgrade to Stoll. Shore is a question mark but hes on the 4th so doesnt really bother me that much.

Defensive will be a question depending on Voynov. We could roll with

Doughty-Muzzin
Voynov-McNabb
Martinez-Greene

id be pretty fine with that although McNabb will have to cover any mistakes Voynov makes. Im still hoping we can sign a defensive veteran defenseman with some bite to him along the lines of Mitchell or Regher.

 

[CaptHowdy00]

Vishnovsky is still out there.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Its funny to be to really bring up Quick's age since goalies tend to age a lot better than any other positions. Hell most goalies dont even become a starter till their mid to late 20s.

I noticed that too, a skater at age 29 is approaching (or in Brown's case already entered) decline where as that is when goalies tend to take off. Plenty of "old" goalies have played well into their 30s (Roloson, Roy, etc.) so I kind of laughed at that comment myself.

id be pretty fine with that although McNabb will have to cover any mistakes Voynov makes. Im still hoping we can sign a defensive veteran defenseman with some bite to him along the lines of Mitchell or Regher.

Voynov is a T2 defender, if anything I think he will be the one covering for McNabb while he still gets his NHL feet wet. McNabb was awful when the season started but around the 40 game mark you could see him becoming more confident in his abilities and decisions. Hoping he becomes Mitchell 2.0.

I stated the same thing in another thread, the only SAH I would want to target would be Volchenkov who is still available but the Kings have no cap room without dumping someone somewhere else.

Vishnovsky is still out there.

Yeah no.

=)~~

Kings need a SAH defender, not another offensive guy. He is a shell of himself anyway, and his age has really caught up.

 

[Psych3man]

Biggest fluke of all: 3-15 in OT/shootouts, thereby missing playoffs by 3 pts

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Mostly, yes but they also had leads in games late and lost them.

Win 5 more of those and go 11-10 even, or hold onto 1-2 games where they had the lead but lost and the Kings are in with 101 points minimum.

Not worried about it, and adding Lucic and Ehrhoff while losing Williams/Stoll/Sekera is a wash in my opinion. Loved Williams, and he was a puck possession machine but that didn't equate to productivity. Good player, on the decline, it was time to move on.

 

[Kings4moreOT]

I think the Kings will be back in the mix this season. After this offseason it appears the changes will be positive, I still dislike Williams not in the lineup especially come big game time....but LA should be fine

 

[PuckinUgly57]

I'm OK with Williams leaving and honestly was expecting it. What I wasn't expecting was the Lucic trade, which the more I think about it is putting Brown on notice. Lucic wasn't brought in to replace Williams, I feel he was brought in to replace Brown, that T6 power forward (that Brown has shown to be when he wants to).

If Brown has another < 30 point season, I think Lucic will be resigned and Brown will be shopped. Can't have that type of money locked into a B6 forward no matter what he accomplished in the past.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Back to Williams, he was a possession machine but didn't produce a heck of a lot for the minutes he was getting. I appreciate the guy and everything he did here, we heard about his leadership and big game rep when he was brought over from Carolina in 2008 or 2009 and he absolutely delivered.

I wish the guy well, he will always go down as one of my favorite Kings but I also feel the Kings are getting out and cutting their losses before it gets worse. Dude is 33-34, has a ton of mileage on him and while he was relatively injury free the last 3-4 years in LA he was very injury prone the first 5 years of his career. That stuff gets worse as you get older and it's easier to get injured.

Not wishing it on him and hope he delivers for the Caps (except in the Cup Final haha - god I hate that team) but I think it was time to part ways.