1) Lombardi set the standard in LA when he was hired. Everything from infrastructure, culture, staff hiring and the player personnel. He wasn't perfect, but he assembled the only Kings team to ever win the cup and we are forever grateful for what he has done for this franchise.
2) That all being said, you cannot deny the fact that after the 2014 cup, Lombardi was going backwards and did everything he could to keep the team going. In doing so, he kept trying to pull off Carter and Gaborik trades again and it set the team back.
2014-15: Despite winning the cup in 2014, he should've bought out Richards when he had the chance. I remember understanding why he didn't, but that doesn't make it the right decision. We were able to get out of it, but Richards will now be on the payroll forever basically. Now some of these things were not his fault. I don't think anyone could've predicted Voynov or Bartosak harming the team's future. Its unfortunate that Sekera got hurt when he did because he looked really good in those limited games for us, plus he also did well to protect that first round pick in case we did miss the playoffs. I'll give this season a pass for Lombardi because a lot of stuff went really wrong that was out of his control and that team was good enough to make the playoffs, but the Flames would not lose.
2015-16: Kings had their highest draft position since 2009 at 13th overall in the deepest draft since 2003. 4 players I remember really wanting to draft was Zacha, Barzal, Connor and Konecny in that order. Lombardi trade Martin Jones, Colin Miller, 13th overall for 1 season at 50% retained for Lucic. I remember trying to convince myself to like that trade, but it was really hard to see a player like Barzal and Connor continue to drop where we would've been. I don't care about losing Jones or Miller. Jones was going to ask too much and Miller's value was not going to be any higher after his season in Manchester that year. But trading for 1 year of Lucic? And even if he did resign him, you could predict he would have a similar situation with Brown.
2016-17: Sutter's contract was up at the end of that year and I personally thought he should not have been brought back. The team looked nothing like the 2 cup winning team and you could feel the tension growing being the players and Sutter. And its much easier to get rid of the coach than the players. Sutter stripped Brown of the captaincy and gave it Kopitar which I'm not sure was entirely necessary. The team had become stale and it needed a change after missing the playoffs twice in 3 years.
So is the life of a modern Sports executive. Now those who are criticizing Lombardi are not criticizing him prior to the 2 cups, they are criticizing him post cups. He did a lot of things right and gave the organization a plan and stuck with it until it paid off. After the cups though, he really had no plan and just kept hoping the team could regain their magic. We'll all be forever grateful for him, but he is not immune to criticism.
3) Probably still too early to rate Rob Blake's performance after just one season. But there are some positives. Blake refilled the barren cupboard of prospects. Our only goalie prospect after the Bartosak incident was Campbell, and he was drafted 6 years prior and we didn't even draft him. Now we have Campbell, Petersen, Kehler and Villalta, all of whom seem to have potential. We got a gift from the hockey gods in Vilardi and JAD and now we have guys to look forward too. We got out of Gaborik's deal and got Phaneuf at a lower cap hit and a lesser role.
Stevens hiring: Again probably still too early. I said it in my original post that our offense did improve, but was non existent at the end of the year which is concerning. I thought we should've look outside the organization (Gallant!) instead of just zeroing in Stevens just because he was the associate head coach.
No one is saying Blake is better or different than Lombardi. We can talk about that if we win another cup. But it seems like Blake is taking a more patient approach that Lombardi got away from after 2014. I believe we have to wait and see what he does this summer to fully evaluate. We wanted to see what the boys could do with Sutter gone and now we have an idea of where we need to improve.