TSN: Pearson traded to Pittsburgh

[Raccoon Jesus]

Thanks for everything Tanner, but he was part of the problem. He was a 40-point player playing top-6 minutes. He'll be fine in PIT if he plays 3rd line minutes.

The cap space next summer will help and we're getting again a little closer to Hughes.

Obviously, we still have top-6 players who can't score more than 50 points.

And Carl Hagelin is a 30 point player getting top-six minutes.

When will people start to get past the notion that all top sixers are 80 point players or something? Complementary 40-50 point scorers have a large place there.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

So you think that this team, when/if it plays to its potential....and everyone knows its not..but when its firing on all cylinders, you think that team is worse than SJ, ANA, LV, DAL, CGY, VAN, even EDM?

Honey, this team is playing to potential.

Their potential is old and slow and unmotivated. You can't analyze potential raw skill in a vacuum divorced from every other factor. Yes, Doughty, Kopitar, Carter, Kovalchuk, etc. are skilled players. But most of those players are declining with age, or playing outright unmotivated. Potential doesn't mean a damn thing. The Canucks had potential in 2012. And how does history remember them?

I said it last season: 17/18 will go down as Kopitar's career capstone year. That was as good as he will ever be. The only player we have with their career season arguably yet to come is Doughty.

The team is not good. Full stop. They're not good on the ice, and they're not good on paper. On paper, they're far too reliant on regressing vets. They have major holes at their top six wings, 3C, and top four RHD. They're just not good. There were MANY posters saying just that over the summer. Tons of question marks on paper. Tons of holes on paper. None of that had the benefit of hindsight, as you claim.

And I would take Edmonton's roster in a heartbeat, because you at least have a young, hungry core who can be built around. Are you seriously suggesting you'd rather have a core of Kopitar and co. than McDavid and Drai?

 

[Rorschach]

Oh, just you wait, Hagelin will don a number in the 70's and be placed alongside Carter & Toffoli

I heard 70 is available...

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

Worse than San Jose, yes. And when was the last time they clicked? 4 years ago? Can't keep putting out the same **** and hoping it works. You're insane if you thought Kovalchuk was going to make this team a contender. And it's not hindsight. There's no one who thought the kings were before the season started. Everyone figured bubble playoff team at best.

I think the fact that Blake thought it could be....is a fair perspective to have given what he had and what he saw....the whole, he should have known better, is just self satisfying muck....

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

Worse than San Jose, yes. And when was the last time they clicked? 4 years ago? Can't keep putting out the same **** and hoping it works. You're insane if you thought Kovalchuk was going to make this team a contender. And it's not hindsight. There's no one who thought the kings were before the season started. Everyone figured bubble playoff team at best.

I think the fact that Blake thought it could be....is a fair perspective to have given what he had and what he saw....the whole, he should have known better, is just self satisfying muck....

 

[DryIslandBartender]

I have to laugh when someone says our expectations are out of control. Luc and Blake sat there before the season and fed us lines like “we’re contenders”.

We go from contenders to being a last place team right away. Sorry but I’m not sure anyone is manning the controls here.

 

[BigKing]

Dude, Blake saw the team with one playoff win in 3 seasons and also didn't buy at the deadline. DL bought every single deadline and contributed to an empty cupboard. What should Blake be held accountable for? Lombardi was wrong and it costs us future pieces, Blake seems to have been wrong and it hasn't cost us anything other than a losing season.

I think your biggest issue is that you seem to think that trading away under performing players with term for picks is just an easy thing to do. Your whole argument is that this team isn't good enough to contend and that the players all suck, so who is going to not only take them on, but give you value for them? Only 5 teams have more than 8.3 million in cap space.

DL didn't really buy in 2017, either. Blake got Carter back as his deadline deal last season and then used this all-of-a-sudden-precious cap space on Kovy. Honestly though, I don't know how much Patches/Kovy was Blake. He seemed like he wanted to just stay the course, not use cap space and then bam, goes deep on a $6MM a year hit. He's the GM though so he is the one with his neck out.

I'm not ragging on the return since Pearson has never had lower value. The point is that we are now this deep in to Blake's tenure and now it is sell-off time. It should have been right when he took over.

RJ -

Nobody expected them to be this bad but most of us expected them to bad last season. Fluke outlier performances fooled everyone. Now they seem to have fluked the other way so they are probably somewhere in between; however, that in between is the black hole and is utterly pointless.

It's been a constant argument on here for years now. Now that its apparent it needs to be done, many more on board with it yet they still argue that it shouldn't have been done earlier? Fascinating.

There isn't any back-patting from me. I thoroughly enjoyed the start to last year and even thought they could beat Vegas because I think their team is total shit and we had Quick in net. I have to cheer for them to win even if I don't agree with the direction of the franchise. I want Blake to be great but he's failed so far: simply not doing the one thing that his predecessor did too much of--trading 1st round picks--doesn't mean he's doing a great job. It's like watching someone jump off a cliff, die, and then not jumping behind them. Bravo, genius.

At the end of the day, Blake is the GM of this team. He didn't inherit the team two months ago. I have no issue with the Sekera trade but it wound up being a giant mistake. I can give the reasoning behind many of DL's ill-fated moves and can totally understand why he did them just as I can understand why Blake has done what he has so far: doesn't mean that mistakes aren't mistakes.

 

[KingsFan7824]

No, he doesn't have to do anything with Pearson right now. Doing nothing is often the best course to take.

Yet there are people ripping him for doing exactly that for the most part since he took over. All he does is sign college free agents.

Pearson has produced at every level. Now for 17 games he's playing like he doesn't belong so we have to trade him. Childish logic. If we're going to use that logic nearly every player in the NHL has to be traded at some point during the season.

Is it 17 games? Some didn't like his 2nd half last year. Or his 2nd half from a few years before that. Or the 1 goal and 3 points in his last 9 playoff games.

tl;dr - they were going to have to open up extra cap space for Doughty's raise anyway, plus Iafallo/Kempe, so whether it was Pearson, Martinez, or Muzzin, someone was going for nothing. We know that though.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Honey, this team is playing to potential.

Their potential is old and slow and unmotivated. You can't analyze potential raw skill in a vacuum divorced from every other factor. Yes, Doughty, Kopitar, Carter, Kovalchuk, etc. are skilled players. But most of those players are declining with age, or playing outright unmotivated. Potential doesn't mean a damn thing. The Canucks had potential in 2012. And how does history remember them?

I said it last season: 17/18 will go down as Kopitar's career capstone year. That was as good as he will ever be. The only player we have with their career season arguably yet to come is Doughty.

The team is not good. Full stop. They're not good on the ice, and they're not good on paper. On paper, they're far too reliant on regressing vets. They have major holes at their top six wings, 3C, and top four RHD. They're just not good. There were MANY posters saying just that over the summer. Tons of question marks on paper. Tons of holes on paper. None of that had the benefit of hindsight, as you claim.

And I would take Edmonton's roster in a heartbeat, because you at least have a young, hungry core who can be built around. Are you seriously suggesting you'd rather have a core of Kopitar and co. than McDavid and Drai?

dead last overall?

I'm sorry, but that's hyperbole.

Various shades of not good, tons of holes, whatever, that's fine, that's all debateable and acceptable to some degree.

No roster with a Selke/hart-caliber Center, Norris winning team canada medalist arguably best #1 d-man in the game, and a conn smythe winning goaltender would be 'playing to potential' in 31st even if the sum of the other parts was crap.

I think we can be critical--even vociferously--without making shit up.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

I think, to be fair, you BOTH have to admit that literally NO ONE would have had the Kings at dead last in the NHL at this point. I don't think even @KINGS17 's best fever dreams had Kopitar being this dreadful.

There's a middle ground here. Yes, Blake--and many of us apparently--were terribly wrong about the state of this roster. Personally, I thought we could START a retool like Boston and start moving some parts around for younger parts and picks while retaining the core; I never would have thought the core itself would immediately be a (THE?) problem and that the moveable parts would turn to sludge as well and I don't think anyone giving a good faith honest evaluation beyond hatred for certain players or staff would believe that either. It is also a reasonable expectation to suggest they SHOULD at least be a bubble team. I don't think there's any historical precedent for the instant decay like we've seen here with such little player turnover from season to season.

Sayng "we told you the team was in bad shape" is a far cry from "this is a lottery team," so I don't think anyone should be patting themselves on the back for predicting a giant abstract grey area that could cover anything from 31st place to first round exit. The smugness needs to go.

The most conservative estimates had them at playoff bubble team, and only if tons of question marks swung in our favor.

No, there were few who predicted a dead last start to the season. But there were many who predicted they would struggle to even make the playoffs.

That's like saying you'll die of AIDS, but technically it's pneumonia that got you in the end. You're still dead.

Any and all predictions between "lottery team" and "playoff bubble at best" were right on the money, as far as I'm concerned. We were all watching the same signals.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Had to be done, obviously still a bit sad. Fare well.



Great photo.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

The most conservative estimates had them at playoff bubble team, and only if tons of question marks swung in our favor.

No, there were few who predicted a dead last start to the season. But there were many who predicted they would struggle to even make the playoffs.

That's like saying you'll die of AIDS, but technically it's pneumonia that got you in the end. You're still dead.

Any and all predictions between "lottery team" and "playoff bubble at best" were right on the money, as far as I'm concerned. We were all watching the same signals.

It's really not like that at all and I'll give anyone here who can find a Kings poster saying the Kings would be a lottery team a cookie. You won't find that.

And it does matter, because it's a matter of player value. I thought they'd be a bubble team at best if things broke right--which would give them the opportunity for a slow burn retool rather than a "we're f***ed" selloff.

 

[BigKing]

I think the fact that Blake thought it could be....is a fair perspective to have given what he had and what he saw....the whole, he should have known better, is just self satisfying muck....

In the Athletic's season preview, there were anonymous GM/front office quotes for every team. There were definitely a couple that were very negative.

Their demise has been foretold for a while now. 2017 was horrible. Last year was supposed to be trash but Kopitar went bonkers and Brown arose from the dead. Outlier seasons that delayed the inevitable.

The level of their poor play is not expected as you don't expect a team with 11/8/32 to be dead last and look this bad while doing it. That being said, the best case scenario for last year was black hole. That's basically what happened and it took an MVP caliber year from #11: something he had never done before.

 

[Pandaman11]

And Carl Hagelin is a 30 point player getting top-six minutes.

Yes, I know. And that's a good thing because Jack Hughes.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

The really ass backwards thing about all of this is Kovalchuk's play

"The Kings are the Kings with one question mark--Kovalchuk."

 

[Legionnaire]

I do not understand this trade.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

dead last overall?

I'm sorry, but that's hyperbole.

Various shades of not good, tons of holes, whatever, that's fine, that's all debateable and acceptable to some degree.

No roster with a Selke/hart-caliber Center, Norris winning team canada medalist arguably best #1 d-man in the game, and a conn smythe winning goaltender would be 'playing to potential' in 31st even if the sum of the other parts was crap.

I think we can be critical--even vociferously--without making **** up.

If you want to split hairs between 31st overall (5-11-1) and 25th overall (8-8-1), that's your prerogative. Bad is bad. They're a bad team. Are you really contending this? How much better do you think these guys are capable of playing?

"Well, Kopitar won a Selke and Doughty won a Norris!" is not an argument. Hockey is a team game. No one is denying that Kopitar, Doughty, and Quick are exceptional players in the right circumstance. But two of those three are on the wrong side of father time. So at some point you need to acknowledge these disastrous slumps are simply par for the course with regressing, older players. Kopitar defied expectations last year with a monstrous, career campaign, and the team was still first round fodder. It's only logical to assume he would NOT match that level of play again, and the team would be much worse.

 

[KINGS17]

I think, to be fair, you BOTH have to admit that literally NO ONE would have had the Kings at dead last in the NHL at this point. I don't think even @KINGS17 's best fever dreams had Kopitar being this dreadful.

There's a middle ground here. Yes, Blake--and many of us apparently--were terribly wrong about the state of this roster. Personally, I thought we could START a retool like Boston and start moving some parts around for younger parts and picks while retaining the core; I never would have thought the core itself would immediately be a (THE?) problem and that the moveable parts would turn to sludge as well and I don't think anyone giving a good faith honest evaluation beyond hatred for certain players or staff would believe that either. It is also a reasonable expectation to suggest they SHOULD at least be a bubble team. I don't think there's any historical precedent for the instant decay like we've seen here with such little player turnover from season to season.

Sayng "we told you the team was in bad shape" is a far cry from "this is a lottery team," so I don't think anyone should be patting themselves on the back for predicting a giant abstract grey area that could cover anything from 31st place to first round exit. The smugness needs to go.

To be fair, I have always said this is a black hole team. Their lack of work ethic and identity makes the Kings last in the NHL for now. There is still time for them to climb out of last and into the black hole this season, which would be a tragedy for the franchise at this point in time.

 

[johnjm22]

Yet there are people ripping him for doing exactly that for the most part since he took over.

Irrelevant.

Is it 17 games? Some didn't like his 2nd half last year. Or his 2nd half from a few years before that. Or the 1 goal and 3 points in his last 9 playoff games.

He didn't have a great season, but he was a more than serviceable NHL player. This is a 26 year old that's produced at every level. Odds favor that his current production would revert to a mean.

tl;dr - they were going to have to open up extra cap space for Doughty's raise anyway, plus Iafallo/Kempe, so whether it was Pearson, Martinez, or Muzzin, someone was going for nothing. We know that though.

No you don't know that. Kings would have a little cap space after Doughty's raise while still holding on to Pearson (and that doesn't count a potential cap increase). Things would've been tight but workable.

 

[KingTrouty]

I’m sure the guys that are the largest reason for the suck, the “leaders,” are soo scared and motivated to change, now.

Pearson was done in LA. The more he showed he didn’t care, wasn’t gonna try, the sooner this needed to happen. But he’s merely the first domino. What we all know we need are some shock and awe trades. In the middle of the night so they can’t say bye to the team. Hand them their tickets at their door in their jammies. “Here’s your tickets to your new cities, we’ll pack and send your locker. Good luck.” type exit. The guys still here, if it makes them mad, hurts their ego that they weren’t informed. Good. They’re next.

Whether Blake has that don’t-give-a-f*** in him as a GM, we about to see.

The country club needs to be cleansed from Staples. Trading Pearson doesn’t tilt the needle in that way. Toffoli, same. No one is gonna miss them in the locker room in a week.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

If you want to split hairs between 31st overall (5-11-1) and 25th overall (8-8-1), that's your prerogative. Bad is bad. They're a bad team. Are you really contending this? How much better do you think these guys are capable of playing?

"Well, Kopitar won a Selke and Doughty won a Norris!" is not an argument. Hockey is a team game. No one is denying that Kopitar, Doughty, and Quick are exceptional players in the right circumstance. But two of those three are on the wrong side of father time. So at some point you need to acknowledge these disastrous slumps are simply par for the course with regressing, older players. Kopitar defied expectations last year with a monstrous, career campaign, and the team was still first round fodder. It's only logical to assume he would NOT match that level of play again, and the team would be much worse.

Which--again--is fine, but anyone saying they were predicting a drop from a 98-point team to a 50-point team is absolutely full of crap, and you might call it splitting hairs (25th overall isn't a bubble team, btw, you're being dishonest to make a point, which is my beef), but it's important and relevant to both player value and team construction as that affects trades and draft picks and strategy altogether.

I'm digging in on this point because for some reason a few posters want to slap this board in the face with "SEE?" and I think it's road apples because 1. as mentioned above no one predicted this; 2. even the biggest optimists here thinking a team would be this bad would be on board with different philosophies; 3. calling it a 'bad team' and stamping around proclaiming "I WAS RIGHT" for predicting they'd finish anywhere between 16 and 32 is hardly a bold take worthy of the f***ing finger wagging coming from the peanut gallery; and 4. posters are taking some great pleasure in chest thumping that they were right despite the aforementioned fallacies when we're all sunbathing on the Titanic together. Everyone needs to chill the f*** out with the "you people" stuff.

 

[WHOneedsSOX]

Had to be done, obviously still a bit sad. Fare well.



Great photo.

Such a shame how his time ended in LA. I had such high hopes for him. Had great speed, was a great forechecker, solid defensively, and had an underrated shot. Don't know how much of it's him or the way he was utilized but he went from a probable 2nd line player to barely a 4th liner.

I know there's been tons of turnover but kind of funny how 5 of the 7 guys whose autographs I have gotten in the last 3 years are gone. Quick and Lewis better be on the lookout.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Such a shame how his time ended in LA. I had such high hopes for him. Had great speed, was a great forechecker, solid defensively, and had an underrated shot. Don't know how much of it's him or the way he was utilized but he went from a probable 2nd line player to barely a 4th liner.

I know there's been tons of turnover but kind of funny how 5 of the 7 guys whose autographs I have gotten in the last 3 years are gone. Quick and Lewis better be on the lookout.

I think he'll figure it out. I get that the Kings couldn't afford to wait. But by the time his next deal rolls around, I think he'll be more comfortable with his leg recovery, his kid will be born, his marriage will be settled in. Should be a good player for years to come. He plays a simple, effective, complementary north-south game when he's at his best.

 

[Kingsfan1]

I do not understand this trade.

From what I understand it’s a Pejorative Slured trade that gives us cap space for next year but also Pearson was about to enter his prime and I wouldn’t be shocked to see him hit 50+ in the Burgh next year . Hagelin is a 4th liner . I’m shocked he couldn’t get Sprong honestly that would give us cap space too and at least a player who has potential

 

[Kingsfan1]

Also it’s a wake up call to get the team going . If they continue to suck then more players of the family gon be traded.

 

[WHOneedsSOX]

I think he'll figure it out. I get that the Kings couldn't afford to wait. But by the time his next deal rolls around, I think he'll be more comfortable with his leg recovery, his kid will be born, his marriage will be settled in. Should be a good player for years to come. He plays a simple, effective, complementary north-south game when he's at his best.

Yeah, I'm thinking somewhere around 17-20-37 on average for the prime of his career. Just meant in terms of how he was supposed to he a staple in the kings top 6 for the next 5 years but instead he's traded for hopefully a mid round pick and cap space.