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Going Over the Many Possibilities on the Los Angeles Kings Roster

July 3, 2016, 3:38 PM ET [32 Comments]
Jason Lewis
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT



July 1st came and went, and while we are mostly used to the big splash signings of players like Alexei Ponikarovsky, Kings were surprisingly active.

They made five signings, all five of which will be in contention for NHL roster spots.

We covered four of them here , before the news broke later in the day that Teddy Purcell signed on with the Kings for one year and 1.6 million.




Purcell was a trade target for the Kings at the 2015-16 deadline, along with Justin Schultz of Edmonton. Unfortunately the transfer status of Nikolai Prokhorkin put the kibosh on that reportedly.

Anyways, the Kings now have 27 skaters to try and fit on a 23-man roster come opening night. The breakdown being 16 forwards, 8 defensemen, and 3 goalies. (Jack Campbell for all intents and purposes will be in the AHL)

That is quite a bit of fat to trim off the roster, especially with some of the ensuing positional battles that could happen this year. Let's take a quick look at some of the more sensible combinations of forwards/defensemen, and then discuss what this could mean moving forward. We will give you some straightforward options, but also some experimental ones.


Top 6

The top 6 is pretty cut and dry. There are very few players that could pick up Top 6 minutes on the Kings team. That does not mean they are without options however.

Standard

Pearson - Kopitar - Gaborik
Purcell - Carter - Toffoli

This is probably the most simplistic and straightforward Top 6 the Kings could have. You could also swap Pearson and Purcell if a re-uniting of the Pearson/Carter/Toffoli line is desired. Those are two world class centers, and four skilled wingers capable of contributing in a top 6 role to go along with it.

Experimental

Carter - Kopitar - Gaborik
Pearson - Dowd - Toffoli

Dowd, who has some decent offensive instincts and playmaking skills, slots in at 2C leaving Purcell to move down into the lower parts of the lineup in order to bolster those. You lose a good center in Carter, but 77 struggled at times last year and was moved to the wing late in the year with Vinny Lecavalier elevating. The question mark is can Dowd be more than just a Nick Shore, who was an offensive catalyst at the AHL level but has struggled to get on track in the NHL. You lose strength down the middle, but it allows you to have a beastly first line and move another more skilled winger into a perhaps offensively stimied bottom six.

While certainly lacking visual appeal at times, the Carter-Kopitar line combo turned in some good numbers in limited work last season.

View post on imgur.com


Defensively it was a bit weaker than normal considering what we expect from a Kopitar line, but the Milan Lucic factor may have played a part in that. Almost all of Lucic's lines were very "Chance trade-ish". Compounded with Carter's perhaps "Down" year in that regard (Which again, may have had to do with Lucic), it was kind of no surprise.

Bottom 6

All bets are off on the bottom six. There are so many options you could go with here, but the bottom line is that someone (maybe two) is/are probably not going to be with the Kings by the start of the season.

We will give you a couple of options to mull over here.

Standard 1

Lewis - Shore/Dowd - Brown
King - Dowd/Shore - Latta

This combo preserves the Kings possession monster third line, while giving new guys Latta and Dowd some play and an opportunity for Dwight King to re-establish himself after a down year.

Dowd and Shore are essentially interchangeable in this scheme depending on how well Dowd takes on a more established role in the lineup. At this point that question could elevate him anywhere from pressbox to 2C.

Standard 2


Lewis - Shore - Brown
Clifford - Latta - Nolan

Latta can play center or wing, and has done so at different times in his NHL career. Historically he is better on the faceoff than Lewis, so putting him at center might not be a bad option over someone like Andreoff, who is defensively a question mark still. This is a pretty standard "Heavy" hockey 4th line, with all three being tough customers with NHL experience. We all know that Darryl Sutter likes that style of player in his lineup. It also puts Dowd and Mersch out of the lineup, as well as Andreoff and Dwight King (See how we are getting way too many options?) It is a lineup you might see against a team like Anaheim, whom of which like to stir things up between whistles.

Experimental 1

Mersch - Dowd - Brown
Clifford - Shore - Latta

You let your young guys play, and re-unite a good AHL one-two of Mersch-Dowd with an experienced "Give me the puck" player in Dustin Brown. It follows the traditional idea of feeder-retriever-shooter, although Mersch and Brown can play similar styles. Mersch loves to shoot the puck, or at least did so at the AHL level. However, Dustin Brown's propensity for shooting mixed with Mersch's instinctual drive to the net might be an excellent thing together if Dowd acts as a facilitator of the play.

Shore and Latta could form a nasty shutdown combo on your 4th line, and if you wanted to go all in on no scoring-all defense, plug Lewis in on the left and enjoy your zero goals for zero goals against fourth line.


Experimental 2

Purcell - Dowd - Brown
Andreoff - Shore - Nolan

Size on the 4th line with a defensive center to make up for any misgivings Nolan and Andreoff may commit. Nolan and Andreoff are actually not bad when it comes to offense, and with Shore centering their line it could work. Purcell moves down to form a potentially strong third line. Only problem here is that it may leave Dwight King in the top 6, which many fans are sick of seeing at this point.

Forward Overview


You could go on and on...and on, with all the potential bottom six combos the Kings could throw together. The point still remains, there are way too many spots for too few players. Michael Mersch will still have AHL possibility in his future since he is not subject to waivers just yet. Nic Dowd, on the other hand, is. There will be plenty of competition for wing spots, and maybe even center spots as Andreoff, Dowd, Latta, Lewis and Shore can all play center, while Latta, Nolan, Andreoff, King, and Lewis could all realistically play a 4th line wing in the NHL still.


Defense


The defense is much more straight forward of a group, although it may get a little hairy when it comes to the 5-6-7 guys.


Top 4


Standard


McNabb - Doughty
Muzzin - Martinez

The group that worked last season and helped the Kings again be a top 5 defensive team. While there is question about the right-left balance and the role of McNabb, it was altogether an excellent top 4, especially through the first half of the season until the acquisition of Schenn and Scuderi kind of threw everything for a loop.

Experimental

Muzzin - Doughty
Martinez - Trotman


Trotman is a RHD, and allows Martinez to shift back over to his natural side AND it gives right left balance to the second pair. You also get the big pair of Muzzin - Doughty together, a pair we should see in the World Cup of Hockey later this year. Trotman played over 18 minutes on average this past season with the Bruins, so playing as a 4D role is not something new to him, albeit going from Zdeno Chara as a partner to Alec Martinez is a big jump.

Bottom pair + 7th D

Welcome to another carousel scenario. The Kings have five, maybe even six players vying for three spots. Greene, who was waived but not bought out, Scuderi, Trotman, Gilbert, and young guys Gravel and Forbort.

I'm not even going to go experimental/standard here because there are just way too many options.

Just know that you have the following on RHD-LHD

RHD LHD
Trotman Forbort
Gilbert Gravel
Greene Scuderi


Have fun.

A few notes however. Gravel and Forbort played together in the AHL as a pair for a decent amount of time despite being both left handed. Both admitted at different times to being comfortable playing their "off-side".

McNabb could also be in the mix for third pair, so tentatively consider him the left hand group.

There is a realistic possibility that neither Scuderi or Greene are kept on the NHL roster, thus leaving the Kings with two extra defenseman. That might not be a bad thing if three of them are young players with limited experience (Gravel, Forbort, Trotman). However, that limits the Kings to one extra forward. (So again, have fun thinking about that)

Overview


The Kings have a world of possibilities in terms of combos, but none that look truly appetizing if you are trying to both preserve right-left balance AND give young players an opportunity. Gilbert seems like a must for the NHL roster given the team went out and targeted him in free agency. Likewise with Trotman. What does this mean for Gravel and Forbort? Or the veteran defensemen in Scuderi and Greene? Forbort is not waiver exempt, with Gravel still being able to head down to the AHL roster. Considering the year he had, it would be almost ridiculous to think he heads back to the AHL but nothing is out of the question if the roster squeeze is on. It also depends on how the Kings feel about Scuderi, who very much looked his age in the final third of the season.


Goaltending



The goaltending job is simple. Starting is obviously Quick, but in terms of a backup the Kings have one major question:

Is it Zatkoff or Budaj as backup?

The plus to keeping Budaj in the AHL, despite him potentially being the better back up, is playing time. He will get the lion's share of playing time and stay fresh in case he is needed. With Ontario a simple call up away it seems possible. However, they could also give him the back up job, while allowing Zatkoff and Campbell to duke it out over starting time in the AHL. There is also young Jack Flinn in the AHL, so for once the Kings almost have too many goalies.

Complete Roster Thoughts

Despite some of the negative attitudes, disappointment of not landing a "Big fish" UFA, and frustration with signing a multitude of depth players, the Kings roster looks pretty solid. It was a good team last year, with not much turnover coming outside of losing Lucic, who had both his positive and negative effects.

They have secured at least two established NHL roster players in Purcell and Gilbert, and also added two good upside signings in Latta and Trotman. These moves execute several things.

1. They provide the Kings with a temporary stop gap of one year. All four signings, outside of Zatkoff, are one year deals, and if they do not work they are off the books in 2017-18 when the Kings can turn the allocated money to re-signing core players.

2. Some of these signings induce competition with other players on the roster. Clifford and King did not have very good seasons. Andreoff and Nolan are at make or break points in their career. Dowd, Mersch, Gravel, Forbort and Shore all also need to be pushed in order to establish themselves on the NHL roster. Trotman and Latta, who are both 25, could very well steal jobs from the aforementioned players if they play well enough on these showcase contracts. Competition often breeds better play, and maybe we see another level from someone like an Andreoff or Nolan with their futures on the line.

3. They flat out make the Kings better.

While the Kings lost Lucic, they are using money that would have gone to him for five players. Seriously. One for five. Six if you want to count re-signing Lewis. With Lucic asking for $6MM, the Kings instead went out and used $7.15MM on Trotman (650K), Latta (600K), Gilbert (1.4), Purcell (1.6), Zatkoff (900K), and Lewis (2.0). Depth was a bit of an issue that reared its ugly head late in the year, and now Darryl Sutter has almost too much of it. The options are plentiful when it comes to certain parts of the roster. It should also be mentioned that there is a fair bit of versatility on the roster with Gaborik, Brown, Purcell, Lewis, Latta, and Carter all being able to play multiple forward positions.

There are still tons of time, and the Kings realistically have to move two players of the NHL roster. They have around 690K in cap space, and still need to get deals on the books with Dowd and Forbort. Money will need to be found.

Nevertheless, with a deeper look at the Kings roster potential, it is a team that should be pretty good on paper.

How would you line up on Day One of the season if things stay the same as they are right now?

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