This is how you knew it was going right. The proof was on the ice.
2005/06 89 pts (ex player GM gets fired)
2006/07 68 pts (experienced sports executive hired as GM, cleans house)
2007/08 71 pts
2008/09 79 pts
2009/10 101 pts (playoffs, lose in round 1)
20017/18 98 pts (ex player gets hired as GM)
2018/19 71 points (lowest total since the DL bottom out except they were supposed to be good. start of official rebuild but Blake already has two full drafts under his belt)
2019/20 64 points (70 games but took a 7 game win streak to put themselves in a position to have more points than year prior. no guarantees but probably do it. this is the 2007/08 season)
2020/21 .452% point % (2008/09 team had a .482%. this year's team was pacing nicely with that but has fallen off)
The thing with DL is that he signed Handzus before that bottom out season in '08. Then he moved one of our darling prospects for Williams during that 08-09 season. The Kings still finished bad enough to draft Schenn at 5thOA at that point which is something that is in the Kings sights for this year. DL makes the Smyth trade going in to 2009/10, Williams is good before getting hurt and Doughty just goes to another level. Simmonds proves to be awesome as well.
The rebuilds are obviously different as DL had to add vets to the young guys he inherited but his young guys also played key roles on that team (Doughty/Simmonds/Johnson) along with the two guys he got that were in the age range that Blake has none except for Iafallo..maybe Roy at 26 I guess (Stoll/Greene). Blake already has the vets in Kopitar and Doughty but the majority of his young guys aren't doing anything as impactful as DLs. Doughty is a huge outlier but Simmonds doing 40 points and 116 PIMs at 21 in his second full season is impressive. Hell, playing all 82 games in his D +2 at nearly 14 minutes night is awesome.
Blake needs one of his young guys to be a difference maker. The Vilardi thing is rough because that's his first draft choice and we all know they didn't expect him to look like this. I'm not ignoring the solid contributions from Anderson, JAD and the poise of Bjornfot but the big time stud has not arrived. I expect Byfield in the NHL next year but his play in the AHL doesn't look like it will equate to a Kopitar-like rookie year.
Even if they don't make the playoffs next season, Blake has to add a player or two this off-season that is not a placeholder. The Handzus and Scuderi signings were panned as too much/too long/wrong time but were actually awesome in the end. Some of these prospects might flash in camp and win a spot...not like the Kings are full of studs right now. I fully believe that they expected to make the playoffs by next season but I'm not so sure now since that belief was most likely predicated on the belief that Vilardi and Turcotte would be solid contributors. That faith has probably waned a bit but I still expect Blake to add real players this off-season under the premise that his timeline had real playoff expectations by Year 4 of the rebuild.
