How To RUIN Your NHL Franchise In Just One Day

How To RUIN Your NHL Franchise In Just One Day

2014. This was the last time that the LA Kings won a playoff series. Over a decade of time has passed and the Kings, they have very little to show for it. And now we’re at the point where you might be asking yourself, “Wait, Jimmy, the Kings made a bunch of signings during free agency. Surely these players are going to help us break that playoff drought, right? Right.” Well, I hate to break it to you, but it’s actually the opposite. No team fumbled this off season more than the LA Kings. No team made more questionable signings than LA. And no GM deserves more criticism about their roster construction plan than Ken Holland. And today I’m not only going to explain why the Kings lost free agency, but why this team has only hurt themselves with the signings that they’ve made over the past couple of years. Now look, it’s no secret that the LA Kings have had their struggles in the postseason as of late. They’ve now not won a playoff series for over a decade. And they’ve lost four in a row to the Edmonton Oilers. And this off season, I was feeling a little bit more optimistic about the team and the potential moves that they could make. But for some reason, it feels like the Kings don’t understand what direction they should be taking their franchise. At some point, it feels like they’re ready to get younger and move on to that next chapter, but then they go and do the complete opposite, signing veterans and players who just don’t really make a good fit for their current roster construction. It’s just weird overall. And I think the first person we need to talk about when it comes to this is their GM. Now, the Kings had Rob Blake for a while, and he wasn’t a bad GM, but he definitely had uh run out of time with the Kings, if that makes sense. He overstayed his welcome. And what did the Kings do? Instead of trying to get progressive with their GM and get someone who’s younger and understands the current state of the game, they made a lateral shift by signing Ken Holland, a guy who had also worn out his welcome with a different NHL franchise. Now, Holland has come in and already made some pretty questionable moves that are basically the same kind of moves I would have expected Rob Blake to have made. And I think we need to kind of reel it back a little bit and start with the Kings beginning of free agency where things were a bit more optimistic. First thing they do, they bring in Andre Kousmeco again, resign him to a one-year deal at a reasonable cap hit. And that to me was the best decision. I think the Kings needed to continue with their scoring. Obviously, they have a few holes within their top six and middle six. And I feel like Kuzco was a bright spot for their team last year. So, I was happy with the term. give him just a one-year deal to see if it continues to work. And if it doesn’t, you can either trade him at the trade deadline or just let that contract expire and move on to someone else. Perfect kind of move for Holland to have made. Now, this is where things start to become a little bit more complicated and where the chip started to fall for the LA Kings, beginning with Vlatislav Gaov. Now, here’s the thing about Gaov. He may not be the most flashy or may not have the offensive skills that some of the league’s top Dmen have, but what he provided the Kings was a reliable stay-at-home defenseman who could play big minutes and manage the game with the best of them. Well, Gaov was a UFA this year. And while I felt like I wanted the Kings to resign him because I love the fit with their organization, maybe he was asking for too much, maybe they wanted to shake up their blue line. I’m sure they had their reasoning and I didn’t really feel upset about them letting him walk. What I was upset about was what they brought in to replace him. The two guys they brought in were Cody Cece and Brian Dumalain. And it’s not the fact that they brought these two guys in the third line pairing players that that’s not what gets me. It’s the contracts that they gave them and how it went over the contract that Gavricov was looking to sign. It just doesn’t really add up in the end. So, let’s begin with Cody Cece. He was just playing for the Dallas Stars and before that the Edmonton Oilers, a team by the way that was run by Ken Holland, just in case you weren’t familiar with that. CeCe is a great guy, the perfect locker room teammate that can fit in with any culture seamlessly. But those kind of guys are the players that you pay vet minimums to, maybe $2 million max, to play bottom line minutes, to kind of uh teach the young guys that sort of situation. They’re not the kind of guys who play bottom pairing defensive minutes making $4.5 million. That’s just not something that exists in the NHL anymore. Usually the guys on your bottom pairing are making very little money and that allows you to pay those top guys the money that they deserve. The Kings, however, they’re kind of trying to change that model for some reason, which just makes no sense. Now, I will preface this. I’m very happy for Cody Cece. Go get your money. makes complete sense for you, but for the Kings, it just doesn’t add up in any sort of way. And when you couple it with the next contract we’re going to talk about, the Brian Dumlain one, it makes even less sense. Dumlain is now 32 years old and has long since aged out of top pairing duties. And like CC, Dumlain is a bottom pairing defenseman. Nothing more, nothing less. And apparently the Kings are expecting him to play top four defensive minutes. But if they do that, I think they’re going to be severely disappointed because that’s just not the type of player he is anymore. In my eyes, the Kings needed to get younger and quicker. And these two signings are the complete opposite of what they needed. You could have kept Gabricov, had him play in your top four, and surrounded him, Clark, and Delty with some younger pieces that could eventually replace them, but unfortunately, you decided to go a completely different direction and overpay these two free agents to contracts that no other GM was going to sign them to. Look, maybe you’re one of those people who feels like CC and Dumlain have a lot of potential in that the Kings can bring them up in their system and develop them to play top four minutes. Me personally, I just don’t think that that’s the case here. You could have had a guy who was earning a fair contract, a guy who’s a known commodity, who’s very solid defensively at a reasonable AAV, but instead you chose the other option, which is overpaying two guys who, in my opinion, are just going to be third line pairing Dmen. And if you put them in a more serious position, they’re going to ultimately fail and it will hurt your team. So yes, these two signings were not great for the Kings. And I feel like the best player in all of this, which is Gavricov, was the one who walked and signed with the Rangers. So ultimately the Kings are losers. But this isn’t where the losing streak ended for the Kings in this free agency. Beginning with the Jordan Spence deal. I I don’t really understand this one at all. It’s a complete head scratcher to me. You trade a guy in Jordan Spence who’s 24 years old who’s projected to be a part of your young core for the future for a third round pick. I I I don’t really get it. Yes, Jordan Spence hasn’t really shown all that much with the Kings, but I feel like he hasn’t really been given the opportunity to do much with the Kings. The problem with LA in my mind has been their veterans are still playing top minutes, and that kind of prevents their younger guys like Biffield and others to really get those spots. And yes, Quinton Biffield has been given a lot more opportunities in a guy like Spence, but still, you have to develop these young guys to play those topline minutes. that’s where they get the experience and that’s how you can kind of see where they’re at in their developmental process. In this situation, Spence really was never given a chance. And I don’t think that his contract would have been that bad to sign for the Kings to have not held on to him unless he wanted to leave, which I haven’t seen reports on. I felt like they should have kept this player, but they decided to go elsewhere. And instead of going out and trying to sign another young guy, maybe being in on a guy like JJ Purkco or someone else, they decided to replace him with Corey Perry, a guy who is signing a one-year $2 million deal, which in itself isn’t terrible, but it just makes your lineup slower and older, which is the exact opposite of what the Kings should be doing. It’s like the same pattern happened this off season the entire time. They get rid of younger guys. They bring in older guys. They sign them the bad contracts instead of signing a reasonable contract to the players that likely would have been better for your future. Again, I think this is all on Holland. I don’t know what the direction he’s trying to take here. I feel like he just loves the players that he loves and he’s stuck on them. Whether they’re good value contracts or not, he just wanted to bring these players in and he had his mind set to it rather than thinking critically about what his team actually needed. It just doesn’t make all that much sense to me. So, moral of the story, the Kings are worse off today than they were last season. And their current GMs over the past couple of years just have no idea how to build a modern NHL roster, which makes them the biggest losers of free agency. But let me know what you guys think. Like I said, I know there’s some people out there who like the CC contract for some reason and the Doomland one. But I want to hear from you guys. Am I overreacting? Are these contracts actually good? And what do you think about some of the other signings? Do you like the Perry one? Do you like the Koozco one? Drop your thoughts in the comments below. And before we end off this video, let’s get into some of your comments from my most recent upload. All right, so these are comments coming from my most recent upload talking about the greatest collapse in NHL history, that historic 2022 23 Boston Bruins team. With the first comment coming from R. Terissy, who says, “The Bruins were so stunned by this that they went from best team in league history to a lottery team in two seasons. That series decimated the franchise.” Yep, it completely changed the course of history for the NHL as we know it today. But let’s also not pretend like the Bruins weren’t heading to that situation anyways. They had an aging core, were up against the Cap, and that was just basically their final run with that core. So, yes, it destroyed them, but they were going to go that way anyways, just based on their prospect pool and the limited assets that they had. The next comment comes from at Chrisfx6W, who says, “Looking back on it, it was still the Florida Panthers that had won the President’s Trophy with 122 points the year prior, but finished so much lower in the standings due to injuries. So, while people looked at it like David verse Goliath, it was actually a firstround Stanley Cup final. I actually think this gets under discussed a lot, but still based on how the Bruins played. And if you look at their lineup, I’ll toss it up on the screen right now. This team should have won the Stanley Cup. It was so deep and so talented, but they fell short of expectations. The Panthers were good, but let’s not pretend like the Bruins weren’t the better team. They should have won that series and they choked it out after being up 3-1. That’s why it’s the biggest collapse in my eyes. Next comment comes from @ snipercz6093 who says, “Still hurts because of Berson and Crerachche.” I think that was the most painful thing about watching this series was seeing two legends of the game, two Boston legends not be able to go out on a high note. That that was the thing that definitely made this series a little bit more heartbreaking for Boston fans. And the last comment comes from at U0X official who says, “God, I love my Bruins and I couldn’t feel that sentiment anymore. I’m hoping that the Bruins can bounce back this year and kind of get themselves back into contention, but I’m not delusional. I know we have a few tough years ahead of us. But let me know what you guys think in the comments below about the LA Kings and their off season so far. And if you enjoyed this video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe now. I also have a few other pieces of content right here on the screen for you to get through the offseason with, so be sure to check those out after this one. Again, thank you guys so much for watching. I will see you in the next episode.

Today let’s delve into the biggest loser from NHL Free Agency, the Los Angeles Kings. The Kings coming off their fourth consecutive first round exit at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers were looking to make a splash during free agency. The teams biggest need? Get younger and faster, what actually happened? They got older and slower. Today let’s explain why the Kings are heading in the wrong direction and why signing these deals will hurt their chances to capitalize on this short window with their aging core. Subscribe to Jimmy Hockey for more NHL News and Breakdowns.

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