With the Kings back on the ice yesterday for the first time in almost two weeks, the NHL’s return is now less than a week away.

LA has just five games remaining before the league’s trade deadline on Friday, March 6 at 12 p.m. PT. After the addition of Artemi Panarin to the roster prior to the league’s Olympic break, which brought an unfortunate injury to Kevin Fiala, the Kings could be in the mix to make other adds to their group.

This week, former goaltender and current ESPN NHL Analyst Kevin Weekes joined The Insider Show to discuss what might be out there for the Kings and others as clubs look to improve for the stretch run.

Weekes is well-connected around the league and shared insight on a few different topics as the Olympic competition plays out.

On Panarin’s potential impact on the roster
At this point, he’s going to come in and, I believe, inject a lot of offense. I think people forget, Panarin had 600-something points in 400-something games as a Ranger. His run as a New York Ranger is as good, or among the top, of any Ranger player in franchise history, in terms of productivity, in terms of points per game played. So the Kings are going to be getting some of that, and much needed.

On Panarin coming to LA and the Kings as a destination of choice
I think you probably want to give former King [Vladislav] Gavrikov a little bit of a thank you as well, because he helped Artemi Panarin navigate his choice to ultimately go to LA and was very helpful in that process, in terms of telling him ‘Hey, this is what it’s like, here’s the practice rink, here’s different places you could live, here’s the setup, here’s how the game rink is’, and just different things. So that was great insight, clearly invaluable and always really important. It’s my perspective that every team should be looking at their club like a U.S. college program. What are they doing at University of Oregon? What are they doing at University of North Carolina? What is Alabama doing? What are some of these other big-time programs doing? How are they drawing the interest and what do you have in terms of facilities and amenities? How do you treat the players? How do you treat the staff? How do you treat the players’ families? What’s their experience like after the games? Those are the little things that go a long way. So I think it’s huge that Panarin chose there, I know for a fact that he really wanted to be in LA and there were other teams that had a lot more money on the table, a lot more term on the table, and ultimately he chose LA. So players talk, people talk, staff talks. I know how great of a place LA is. They got a sweet setup. I’ve had a lot of buddies play there, a lot of buddies still live there, but you have to be able to sell your program, and clearly, they sold their program really well to Panarin.

On the Kings goaltending prospect pipeline
There’s a guy by the name of Carter George, who’s been traded to Sault Ste Marie in the OHL, and he’s been awesome there. From speaking to people around Kings development camp and some of my friends that run teams back in the OHL and junior too, it sounds like he’s had another great season. You mention Rimpinen and Slukynsky; those guys are talented as well. But what this comes down to, and I think more teams should do this, you want to stack and pile as many assets as possible. And not assets just kind of all over the board, but positional assets. So now you say, alright, we’ve got a prospect pool of maybe four goalies, if we can help develop them, maybe those goalies may or may not play for us with the Kings, but we could leverage them as an asset to acquire another player, so to speak. You’re then dealing from a position of strength as opposed to a position of weakness, and it gives you flexibility, it gives you options, and I don’t want to call it a problem. It’s a great luxury to create, and it’s an even better luxury to have. And the Kings have done an outstanding job overall, going back to the Jonathan Quick era, of course, with him and [Jonathan] Bernier. I think that they’re sitting in a good spot with that much young goalie prospect depth and I think more teams should be thinking that way.

His assessment of Darcy Kuemper’s play in goal
I’ve been a Darcy Kuemper fan since he played junior in Red Deer in the WHL, because Brent Sutter, who owns Red Deer, coached us with the Devils here in New Jersey. Then he came to Minnesota, and I had a lot of buddies that played in Minnesota that played with him. So to me, he’s always had the size, he’s always had the structure, he’s had the technique. My thing is, when he’s at his best, yes, he’s calm in the net, but he’s also competing on pucks, he’s competing in the blue paint. Now, not competing like Jonathan Quick level of competition in the blue paint, that’s a whole different level, which is why he’s a future Hall of Fame lock. But, when Darcy Kuemper is at his best, he kind of marries his size, his technique and his patience, and he marries that with his ability to battle in the net. If you look at the games where he plays his best, he typically does really great against the Alberta teams, because he played junior in Alberta, and he’s from Western Canada. I think he’s done a really nice job kind of rebooting himself again in LA for the Kings. I think in terms of their goaltending, they’re in a good position, but they’re going to need Darcy Kuemper and/or [Anton] Forsberg to steal some games down the stretch here if they want to get in the postseason.

His thoughts on how the Pacific Division has played out this season
Yeah, it’s very crazy because listen, nobody thought Anaheim was going to come in and have the year they’ve had. Nobody thought San Jose was going to have the year they’ve had, and that’s kind of changed everything. Nobody thought Edmonton would have gotten off to as slow of a start as they had, now they find their gear. I think for Calgary, kind of somewhere in the middle, you didn’t think the drop off would have been this strong. So all that to say the whole Pacific has been in a blender all season long, really literally from the first week. Anaheim got off to that crazy start, then San Jose started beating teams, Macklin Celebrini is an MVP candidate, it’s just kind of changed everything. Coach Quenneville coming just up the 405 there into Anaheim, Cutter Gauthier breaking out, Beckett Sennecke breaking out, all these young guys just playing as well as they were. Who knew what was going to happen in the absence of their franchise goalie in John Gibson, and Dostal has been excellent for them. So it’s been very entertaining and unpredictable at the same time in the Pacific for sure, this year.

Weekes also walked through what multiple other NHL teams might have plans on doing as the deadline nears, and a few of the Kings’ potential trade targets.

The full episode can be viewed now on the Kings YouTube channel below and listened to via any podcast platform.

We’ll have more content coming soon on The Insider Show as the season restarts. Keep an eye out for something new with more information coming in the next few days!

The Insider Show – Episode 105