How The Kings Were Built
The Kings won the Stanley Cup two short years ago, advanced to the Conference Final last season and are have dominated the Blackhawks thus far in this year’s Conference Final. Looking up and down their roster, if they can stay healthy, the Kings should be around for a while.
So how did the Kings build their roster?
The Draft
- 2003
1st round – 13th overall – Dustin Brown - 2005 Draft
1st round – 11th overall – Anze Kopitar
3rd round – 72nd overall – Jonathan Quick - 2006 Draft
1st round – 17th overall – Trevor Lewis - 2007 Draft
4th round – 95th overall – Alec Martinez
4th round – 109th overall – Dwight King - 2008 Draft
1st round – 2nd overall – Drew Doughty
2nd round – 32nd overall – Slava Voynov - 2009 Draft
2nd round – 35th overall – Kyle Clifford - 2010 Draft
2nd round – 47th overall – Tyler Toffoli - 2012 Draft
1st round – 30th overall – Tanner Pearson
Trades
- Jeff Carter – acquired from Columbus for Jack Johnson and a 1st round pick in 2013.
- Mike Richards – acquired from Philadelphia with Rob Bordson for Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds and a 2nd round pick in 2012.
- Marian Gaborik – acquired from Columbus for Matt Frattin and a conditional draft pick.
- Jarrett Stoll + Matt Greene – acquired from Edmonton for Lubomir Visnovsky.
- Justin Williams – acquired from Carolina for Patrick O’Sullivan and a second round pick in 2009.
- Robyn Regehr – acquired from Buffalo for 2nd round picks in the 2014 and 2015 Drafts.
Free Agents
- Jake Muzzin
- Willie Mitchell
- Martin Jones
Breakdown
- 11 players drafted
- 7 players acquired by trade
- 3 players signed as free agents
It’s worth noting that five players selected in the first 52 overall selections of the legendary 2003 NHL Draft are taking part in this series: Jeff Carter (11), Dustin Brown (13), Brent Seabrook (14), Mike Richards (24) and Corey Crawford (52).
Patrick O’Sullivan was the 56th overall selection in 2003 by the Minnesota Wild. He was traded with the pick used to select Trevor Lewis to LA for Pavol Demitra in 2006, and was traded by the Kings to Carolina with a 2nd round pick for Justin Williams in 2009.
In 2010, O’Sullivan was traded to Phoenix by the Oilers for Jim Vandermeer – the same Vandermeer who was involved in two significant Chicago trades.
In 2004, Vandermeer was traded to Chicago with Colin Fraser and the second round pick eventually used on Bryan Bickell for Alexei Zhamnov and a 4th round pick in 2004. In 2007, the Hawks traded Vandermeer back to Philly for Ben Eager, who won the Cup in Chicago in 2010.
That Richard’s deal is probably “overpay” by a lot of standards, especially looking back. Also a lot for Carter given how injury prone he has been the last few years. (Side note: I think there are some parallels between Leddy and Johnson regarding the expectations thrust upon them but I digress)
That Regehr deal is all kinds of barf even if he is healthy but Gabo was basically free.
Here they are 1 Cup and two conference finals later. Some “over pay” is for sure paying off. Could be different in 2 or 3 years if Carter starts to fall apart (like Richards) or Quick’s bionic back doesn’t hold up but at least they had the stones to roll those dice.
Gabo- free
Toffoli- steal/ good scouting
Justin Williams- great deal
Carter- was a steal too– POS quit playing hard for Jackets- cuz he wanted out-imo
was one of the better players Hawks vs. Phil.—2010 SC
And speaking of the LA Kings, don’t forget the man behind the bench. Yet another casualty of the previous Wirtz era.
Tab :
When do the Kings have to start tearing down in order to stay under the cap?
wall –
In ’11/12 Jeff Carter was 39-15-10-25, playing with injury issues and on a pretty weak CBJ team.
He might have wanted out, but the “POS quit playing hard … ” thing doesn’t really stand up in the face of the numbers, does it?
DTP, according to CapGeek, LA has 18 players under contract for next year and about $13.5mm in cap space. Gaborik, Mitchell and Greene are UFA and King is a RFA. Replacing those 4 for $13.5mm should not be hard. LA is gonna be around for a while.
Correction. They have 13.2mm in space using 71.1mm as the Cap…..which is undetermined.
Hawks by contrast have 19 players under contract (includes Run-bad) and about 4.6mm in cap space. Morin, Smith and Raanta are RFAs. Regin & Zues ate UFAs.
Great Post . . . Hawks seldom go for the big name trades and it still seems we “target” a la draft the same type of player, in size, stick skill and puck possession where we really need so SIZE and SPEED, Kings Skate so hard, head down, all to the net! Simple! Jimmy Hayes was pretty close and Morin to me is 80% there. Just need that size in the playoffs during the year ya can out skate teams and in 75% of your games!
There was also speculation that Carter may have a chronic foot problem. I think he has fractured it 3 times in the last 4 or 5 years? Not good for a big guy but paying off so far.
LA will probably have to save some of that room for the year after when they have 9 contracts to sign.
Dunc- OK- the Playing Hard is not fair… just vaguely remember the Pundits -saying Carter wanted out/ and complaining… (he didn’t want to be part of the rebuild)-
not saying he was wrong… but NHL is a business, and I am not fond of guys (if true) that don’t like “the Business- when it is not in their best interest”- does the Team get it’s money back – if you don’t perform up to your $$$- NO!!!
…here the Hawks are (for the time being, anyway) with 2 Cups and NO “OVERpay”.
Kings are looking decent cap-wise for next season; Gaborik and Mitchell are the only two big decisions they will need to make. Lombardi seems to really like Mitchell, and at his age and injury history, he probably wouldn’t be offended by a two-year term. King is an RFA who probably will get a take-it-or-sit increase of no more than double his current $750,000 cap hit, and Greene will either get the same as his present salary or will walk. Gaborik is the big unknown. Kings probably would love to keep him if salary/term are reasonable.
It is 2015-16 when the Kings really are going to need to make some tough choices. Toffoli, Pearson, Stoll, Williams, Clifford, Nolan, Martinez, Regehr and Muzzin all have expiring contracts. Presumably, Lombardi will focus on the younger guys. Regehr likely is gone to free up salary for Martinez/Muzzin and make room for one of the high level defense prospects in the system, McNabb and Forbort. Will be interesting to see if Lombardi tries to trade Williams for value before his contract expires, or if he goes compliance buyout with Richards this summer. Kings have few promising forward prospects in their system right now.
By the way, all of those trades with the exception of Richards and Regehr are absolute home runs for the Kings, and I would say jury is still out on Richards. If the Kings win more than one Cup with him on the roster, the trade has to be considered a win. Lombardi’s hand was forced a bit on the Regehr trade — he needed a stay-at home defenseman heading into the playoffs last year after losing Mitchell and Greene to injury.