GDT: 2023-24 season game 50 LA Kings vs Buffalo Sabres @4:00pm 2/13/24

[Moses Doughty]

Might be interesting to speculate who they could replace him with.

Tulsky or Darche please

 

[Sol]

I don’t think there’s one person here who thought Hiller was a solution. It’s pretty evident that Blake has no choice anymore and is being limited now by AEG. It’s clear that Hiller is all he has and if things don’t get better then he is canned too.

 

[Moses Doughty]

I don’t think there’s one person here who thought Hiller was a solution. It’s pretty evident that Blake has no choice anymore and is being limited now by AEG. It’s clear that Hiller is all he has and if things don’t get better then he is canned too.

Yep, the best part of seeing Hiller named season-long interim was it being obvious Blake would never make that move of his own volition, both firing Todd for Hiller and rolling the rest of a must-improve season with first time NHL HC.

And games like these make it clear that the team can't buy, sell off the UFAs at the very least.

 

[FSL KINGS]

Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow. Right now I'd trade
Kopi@50%
Doughty, Take back Bertuzzi & Brodie for salary
Arvidsson
Gavrikov
Roy, ask if he wants to re-sign, if not, move

Goalies if they want to go somewhere else.

Just completely gutless tonight.
If 11 & 8 don't want to get trade, they can sit in the press box until their contracts are up.

 

[shuchukfan]

What a limp dick effort. That was pathetic.

 

[Cianide]

Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow. Right now I'd trade
Kopi@50%
Doughty, Take back Bertuzzi & Brodie for salary
Arvidsson
Gavrikov
Roy, ask if he wants to re-sign, if not, move

Goalies if they want to go somewhere else.

Just completely gutless tonight.
If 11 & 8 don't want to get trade, they can sit in the press box until their contracts are up.

Blow it up.

 

[Telos]

Kopi isn't going anywhere. He will retire a King for better or worse and he deserves it and isn't the problem, he should be a #2-3 center playing significantly fewer minutes. He also has a NMC.

There are too many things here to count and there is no way AEG will sign off on a firesale. At the very least, with around 3.5 weeks to go until the deadline I hope they start shopping around for Roy and some overpayments on some other guys.

 

[Schmooley]

Kopi isn't going anywhere. He will retire a King for better or worse and he deserves it and isn't the problem, he should be a #2-3 center playing significantly fewer minutes. He also has a NMC.

Were you watching tonight? He was a problem.
Someone posted his stats for January in this thread and I think it was a goal and 5 assists in 15 games for the month. Hes making a big chunk of the cap and is the go to guy in every situation. No coach has the stones to demote him. Love the player but something has to be done.
Just like Quick is one of my all time favorite players but he hit a wall here and it was time to let him go. They didnt extend him a year early like Kopitar and his last year was dicey.

 

[Master Yoda]

‘Fire the coach!’, they said. It will be fun.

Yea everybody was saying promote the assistant coach to run the same system and the same lines.

 

[FSL KINGS]

Kopi isn't going anywhere. He will retire a King for better or worse and he deserves it and isn't the problem, he should be a #2-3 center playing significantly fewer minutes. He also has a NMC.

There are too many things here to count and there is no way AEG will sign off on a firesale. At the very least, with around 3.5 weeks to go until the deadline I hope they start shopping around for Roy and some overpayments on some other guys.

Arvidsson probably gone due to cap
Roy probably gone unless Doughty moved
Gavrikov probably traded next deadline when he doesn't re-sign

Kopi gunna be older & slower
Doughty will be shutting down PP1 with one of Clarke or Spence not on PP.

"Fire Sale" isn't much more than the natural culling due to the cap.

If a new GM is brought in, there'll be changeover anyways. After tonight 65:35 Blake gets canned by the draft?

 

[Cianide]

Blake built this team on speed and mediocre skill (Kempe, Moore, Arvy, Liz) and then tried to make guys like Kopitar and PLD fit the system (whom are east-west players, methodical). This playing style is coming back to bite Blake because it's unsustainable and the players know that. The coaches know that. Blake doesn't know that.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Kopitar has one goal in his last 18 games. He's sandbagging it and dragging the team down with him. A mark of a true leader.

 

[YAYSAY]

‘Fire the coach!’, they said. It will be fun.

I mean it's not like Todd was doing so hot either.

 

[Sol]

Yep, the best part of seeing Hiller named season-long interim was it being obvious Blake would never make that move of his own volition, both firing Todd for Hiller and rolling the rest of a must-improve season with first time NHL HC.

And games like these make it clear that the team can't buy, sell off the UFAs at the very least.

Yup. Blake wouldn’t have fired Todd after extending him. They were way too close to one another for Blake to fire him. And not having the ability to hire a HC says it all.

Aeg fired Todd and said to Blake better make it work or you’re gone

 

[head eyes]

I'm glad he still has a job as Todd's fluffer.

 

[Moses Doughty]

Yup. Blake wouldn’t have fired Todd after extending him. They were way too close to one another for Blake to fire him. And not having the ability to hire a HC says it all.

Aeg fired Todd and said to Blake better make it work or you’re gone

All things going right, we find a new GM who actually realizes that the roster should mesh with itself and with the coach's playstyle, and throwing crap at the wall doesn't work. And that AEG sees it already and tells Blake he can't buy players

If this was EHM or a competition to build a roster in complete opposite to how the prior GM built a winner we'd be doing very well. Too bad that isn't how it works

 

[kilowatt]

Please just retire Kopi. You’ve made more than enough money to sustain multiple generations of massive wealth, you have won 2 cups as the best player on a team, you are going to the Hall of Fame and imo have had the best career of any player to ever wear this jersey.

Don’t go out like a Joe Thornton or a Getzlaf. This is not going to end well if he plays out his contract.

If Kopitar retires, aren’t we on the hook for his full cap hit regardless? It’s a 35+ contract.

 

[BaileyFan]

Yup. Blake wouldn’t have fired Todd after extending him. They were way too close to one another for Blake to fire him. And not having the ability to hire a HC says it all.

Aeg fired Todd and said to Blake better make it work or you’re gone

If this is the case then Blake should just be fired now. Do we really need to see any more to confirm that this team, even if they sneak into the playoffs, is not a contender? Why wait? We need to get the next GM in here to trade guys like Roy, Gavrikov, Danault etc. while they still have good value. Don’t give Blake the opportunity to pull a Chiarelli on the way out.

The fact that AEG is not doing this tells me that regardless of who the GM is next year, they won’t be on board with another tear it down rebuild.

 

[Sol]

All things going right, we find a new GM who actually realizes that the roster should mesh with itself and with the coach's playstyle, and throwing crap at the wall doesn't work. And that AEG sees it already and tells Blake he can't buy players

If this was EHM or a competition to build a roster in complete opposite to how the prior GM built a winner we'd be doing very well. Too bad that isn't how it works

I mean I read somewhere that the order to play 1-3-1 came down from Blake so I think just shelving that will be a big plus

 

[AbsentMojo]

Yup. Blake wouldn’t have fired Todd after extending him. They were way too close to one another for Blake to fire him. And not having the ability to hire a HC says it all.

Aeg fired Todd and said to Blake better make it work or you’re gone

Im sure that's whats happened and what they said to Blake..but i would not be surprised if he's a walking dead man to AEG. To me the main question is does AEG have any faith in Robataille and his buddy Bergovin

 

[AbsentMojo]

If this is the case then Blake should just be fired now. Do we really need to see any more to confirm that this team, even if they sneak into the playoffs, is not a contender? Why wait? We need to get the next GM in here to trade guys like Roy, Gavrikov, Danault etc. while they still have good value. Don’t give Blake the opportunity to pull a Chiarelli on the way out.

The fact that AEG is not doing this tells me that regardless of who the GM is next year, they won’t be on board with another tear it down rebuild.

My understanding is teams usually wait til after regular season because AGMs and other GMs usually arent allowed to talk to other teams..so you'd be limited to the unemployed candidates. But you're right that there are some crucial decisions to be made before the season is over - maybe get a guy like DL who can come in on an interim basis... The main thing is you dont want Blake doing any more damage.

 

[Axl Rhoadz]

Yea everybody was saying promote the assistant coach to run the same system and the same lines.

Supposedly, Scotty Bowman was unavailable.

 

[Herby]

If Kopitar retires, aren’t we on the hook for his full cap hit regardless? It’s a 35+ contract.

It doesn’t matter, cap space is something that contenders should be concerned with, the Kings aren’t going to be contenders next season. This is 05-06 all over again and we need to look at next season as an 06-07 season, where the goal is to draft as high as possible, in hopes of filling some major organizational holes that Blake and his cronies have failed to do, specifically finding a replacement for Kopitar.

I want him to retire because I don’t want to see the player I consider to be the best in franchise history go out like he’s going to go out if he plays out the final 2 years of his contract, a shell of his former great self. Getzlaf couldn’t move his final year for the Ducks, IMO he embarrassed himself, I just don’t want to see Kopi go out like that.

 

[SaltyElkHunter]

It doesn’t matter, cap space is something that contenders should be concerned with, the Kings aren’t going to be contenders next season. This is 05-06 all over again and we need to look at next season as an 06-07 season, where the goal is to draft as high as possible, in hopes of filling some major organizational holes that Blake and his cronies have failed to do, specifically finding a replacement for Kopitar.

I want him to retire because I don’t want to see the player I consider to be the best in franchise history go out like he’s going to go out if he plays out the final 2 years of his contract, a shell of his former great self. Getzlaf couldn’t move his final year for the Ducks, IMO he embarrassed himself, I just don’t want to see Kopi go out like that.

I would collect the 10
Million personally lol

 

[Moses Doughty]

I mean I read somewhere that the order to play 1-3-1 came down from Blake so I think just shelving that will be a big plus

Somehow this makes it even worse if that's true, because then he'd be getting a bunch of guys who don't fit in the system he wants