Stevens and Nachbaur Fired

[Little Psycho]

Lol Willie’s on the job for a day and already discussion about his replacement at the end of the season.

Dreger is just spitballing like usual.

 

[mrkolice]

Dreger is just spitballing like usual.

sometimes two days make a difference. @45 cheerz

and who cares about quenneville. it is what it is.

 

[BigKing]

Do any of you think they offered Patches a good contract? Do you think it was a done deal if only Patches would sign for $2MM a season?

Whatever they offered had to be something they think could get signed so it was a big cap hit probably comparable to Kovalchuk's but with more term.

Just like many of Dean's "misses" (Brad Richards, Forced Smyth trade) Blake is fortunate it didn't go through. I'm glad it didn't. The point of this entire attempted Patches trade is the fact they even tried to trade for him and then sign him: especially when arguing the fact that Management believed this team to be a contender.

Believing the team is a contender doesn't mean they had to trade futures at last season's deadline: they got Carter back and figured that was the same thing. Regardless, last year's deadline means nothing to the argument of these guys believing they had a contender on their hands going into the off season. You don't go big game hunting if the plan is to suck.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

I'd like to see some examples of what was being done to "right the ship."

In his last season here they missed the playoffs by eight points, and his last ditch effort was to trade for Ben Bishop.

Adding Iginla was a good move but it was way too late by the time he was acquired.

Maybe I missed something, but what signs indicated to you guys that they were on the right path? Surely missing the playoffs wasn't that sign.

Magically making the playoffs again is not the only way to right the ship.

He lowballed Lucic, willing to walk away. Bishop could have easily been his long term replacement for Quick. He didn’t sign any free agents. He didn’t make some Hail Mary trade to salvage 16/17.

He was hunkering down for the rebuild. Pretty obvious.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

Doughty will never win a third Cup without babysitters like Williams and Mitchell to change his diaper.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Magically making the playoffs again is not the only way to right the ship.

He lowballed Lucic, willing to walk away. Bishop could have easily been his long term replacement for Quick. He didn’t sign any free agents. He didn’t make some Hail Mary trade to salvage 16/17.

He was hunkering down for the rebuild. Pretty obvious.

If that was the case, why didn't he trade some aging players to bring in any assets, instead, dealt assets for a rental goalie who only started six games and posted pedestrian numbers?

Quite the stretch for "righting the ship." He still thought this was a playoff team and did nothing to address the lack of quality prospects within the organization.

"Righting the ship" apparently included the following transactions...

Signing Teddy Purcell, Tom Gilbert, Jeff Zatkoff, Devin Setoguchi and trading for Ben Bishop and Jarome Iginla.

No young players acquired. Yeah, clearly they were rebuilding.

Pretty obvious he was hunkering down for a rebuild? That is quite the imagination some of you have. You guys need to move on from Lombardi. He's gone. Let it go. Stop living in the past. He put the team in the current position they're in.

 

[BigKing]

He didn't have any dry powder going in to the 2017 season except prospects and future picks.

He moved Cernak in the Bishop deal and brought Iginla in at the deadline. How far out of the playoffs were they at that point in time?

Nobody can say for sure he was ready to go for a full rebuild but it is disingenuous to talk about how he would have trade the Vilardi pick for some reason when all indications point to him keeping it. He knew the pipeline was devoid of high end talent and he knew the 2017 team wasn't worthy of a big deadline deal.

Anyways, we have moved on. We've moved on to Rob Blake. If Dean put him into a mess, Rob hasn't done anything to get out of it except not trade draft picks--outside of the Mitchell trade--and sign UDFAs. He's overseeing the worst start in Kings history since the tanking days and has fired his first coaching hire.

This is his team. He evaluated Dean's team from last year, liked it, and added Kovalchuk to it.

It does not get to be Blake's team when they start hot last season and make the playoffs and then now be Dean's team: especially after Blake has two off-seasons under his belt.

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

If that was the case, why didn't he trade some aging players to bring in any assets, instead, dealt assets for a rental goalie who only started six games and posted pedestrian numbers?

Quite the stretch for "righting the ship." He still thought this was a playoff team and did nothing to address the lack of quality prospects within the organization.

"Righting the ship" apparently included the following transactions...

Signing Teddy Purcell, Tom Gilbert, Jeff Zatkoff, Devin Setoguchi and trading for Ben Bishop and Jarome Iginla.

No young players acquired. Yeah, clearly they were rebuilding.

Pretty obvious he was hunkering down for a rebuild? That is quite the imagination some of you have. You guys need to move on from Lombardi. He's gone. Let it go. Stop living in the past. He put the team in the current position they're in.

You don't see the resemblance of what you typed and I put in bold, and what he did when he first got here?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

You don't see the resemblance of what you typed and I put in bold, and what he did when he first got here?

He dealt Pavol Demitra for a 1st and a top prospect. He dealt the likes of Sopel and flipped Brad Stuart for more assets. What resemblance do you see that indicates such?

 

[Bandit]

He dealt Pavol Demitra for a 1st and a top prospect. He dealt the likes of Sopel and flipped Brad Stuart for more assets. What resemblance do you see that indicates such?

Signing Handzus, Cloutier, (Nagy I think too)? Filler players.

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

Signing Handzus, Cloutier, (Nagy I think too)? Filler players.

Exactly.....I don't know if he signed fillers first, or dealt, or even if he was going to......but there is a resemblance, but who knows what he would have kept doing

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

He didn’t acquire fillers at the trade deadline, and Cernak was a recent 2nd round pick. Dean still thought this was a team that can compete.

If he was ready to rebuild, he would’ve made moves like he did when he dealt Demitra or Visnovsky.

And he gave Handzus, Preissing, Cloutier, Stuart, etc., a lot of money. The Kings were pretty much capped out in 2016-17. If he was going full throttle on a rebuild, he sure did a poor job at restocking the pipeline.

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

He didn’t acquire fillers at the trade deadline, and Cernak was a recent 2nd round pick. Dean still thought this was a team that can compete.

If he was ready to rebuild, he would’ve made moves like he did when he dealt Demitra or Visnovsky.

And he gave Handzus, Preissing, Cloutier, Stuart, etc., a lot of money. The Kings were pretty much capped out in 2016-17. If he was going full throttle on a rebuild, he sure did a poor job at restocking the pipeline.

Or, he was going to give it one last gasp in 2016-2017 then rebuild, you will never know, but again, the fact he brought in fillers, similar to how he started the rebuild when he first came....you continue to ignore that so you can play out your own version of events

 

[DryIslandBartender]

Ziggy, what GM pushes the rebuild button while still in the playoff hunt?

The Bishop trade was potentially a deal that was made to replace Quick. Falls in line with DL’s plan to reinvent the team makeup.

 

[Fishhead]

We'll never know what DL planned to do for sure, but using filler players as an indication of anything is meaningless. Many teams acquire guys like that and at many different stages, from contenders to bottom feeders. It means nothing.

The only thing that indicates a rebuild is incoming is dealing a player for assets. DL did that when he first got here, but did nothing close to that later in his tenure. I seriously doubt a rebuild was in the works, a retool would have been far more likely.

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

We'll never know what DL planned to do for sure, but using filler players as an indication of anything is meaningless. Many teams acquire guys like that and at many different stages, from contenders to bottom feeders. It means nothing.

The only thing that indicates a rebuild is incoming is dealing a player for assets. DL did that when he first got here, but did nothing close to that later in his tenure. I seriously doubt a rebuild was in the works, a retool would have been far more likely.

?? Really? I don't remember Washington, Pittsburgh, or Boston filling up on those types of players...

 

[SettlementRichie10]

If that was the case, why didn't he trade some aging players to bring in any assets, instead, dealt assets for a rental goalie who only started six games and posted pedestrian numbers?

Quite the stretch for "righting the ship." He still thought this was a playoff team and did nothing to address the lack of quality prospects within the organization.

"Righting the ship" apparently included the following transactions...

Signing Teddy Purcell, Tom Gilbert, Jeff Zatkoff, Devin Setoguchi and trading for Ben Bishop and Jarome Iginla.

No young players acquired. Yeah, clearly they were rebuilding.

Pretty obvious he was hunkering down for a rebuild? That is quite the imagination some of you have. You guys need to move on from Lombardi. He's gone. Let it go. Stop living in the past. He put the team in the current position they're in.

How do you know he wasn’t looking into trading some core pieces and that contributed to ownership’s decision to fire him?

The Purcell/Gilbert/Zatkoff/Setoguchi signings look a lot closer to the stopgap summer of Handzus/Preissing/Nagy/Calder. But sure, yeah, those were contending moves.

It’s neither here nor there, in the end, and a lot of this is conjecture both ways.

 

[Fishhead]

Ziggy, what GM pushes the rebuild button while still in the playoff hunt?

The Bishop trade was potentially a deal that was made to replace Quick. Falls in line with DL’s plan to reinvent the team makeup.

Bishop was brought in because of the uncertainty of Quick's injury and for the short term, nothing more, nothing less. There is no way that he was brought in to potentially replace Quick.

 

[Fishhead]

?? Really? I don't remember Washington, Pittsburgh, or Boston filling up on those types of players...

That's why I said many teams, not all teams. Still, these teams have signed those type of guys in the last few years even with seemingly full rosters, like Wilson, DSP, Hundwick, Sestito, Nash, Khudobin, Liles, etc.

 

[Choralone]

Damn. All this disrespect for Zeus. He was more than filler.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Damn. All this disrespect for Zeus. He was more than filler.

People tend to exaggerate things in order to convince themselves that they’re right. Like I mentioned earlier, they didn’t pay a small fee to sign those players.

Dean also tried to sign Chara and other top free agents, unsuccessfully, and he tried to trade for Luongo as well then settled with Cloutier.

He was trying to still ice a competitive team while he built the Kings into the team he envisioned. Selective memories are misconstruing what took place in his last year as going back to the drawing board, which is categorically false.

 

[GoldenBearHockey]

That's why I said many teams, not all teams. Still, these teams have signed those type of guys in the last few years even with seemingly full rosters, like Wilson, DSP, Hundwick, Sestito, Nash, Khudobin, Liles, etc.

Wilson? Colin Wilson was signed as a 3rd line guy by COL, if that's who you mean, if you are talking about Tom Wilson, he was the Caps 1st round pick in 2016

DSP, Hunwick and Sesito fit what you are saying, Nash, Khudobin and Liles do not, it just seems as if you threw out names there....

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Devante Smith-Pelly, Brett Connolly, Alex Chiasson, all cast-offs who the Caps signed in 2017.

A Cup winning team that signed scraps who actually contributed in bottom six roles. I guess that means they were planning on rebuilding and happened to win a Cup?

 

[Vamos Rafa]

Was interim the title of Sutter when he was first hired by LA in late 2011?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Was interim the title of Sutter when he was first hired by LA in late 2011?

Nope, he was given the job. He wasn’t leaving his farm for an interim title.