The draft, in which the Kings had four selections. (Which we will highlight a bit later over the summer and perhaps after development camp).
Then there was the acquisition of Jack Campbell for Ontario defenseman Nick Ebert.
Between all of that, there was the re-signing of noted role player, Trevor Lewis. It was a signing that may not have seemed all that significant, but still cost the Kings $2MM dollars a season and four years on the books.
To some, that was too much.
While the criticism of the deal is certainly worthwhile, let's talk about for a second how the signing is actually good for the Kings.
Two million dollars a year does seem like quite a bit for a player who has never scored double digit goals in his six full NHL seasons. He has also only twice eclipsed 15 points in his career (16 points and 24 points the last two years).
But offense is not always everything, and Trevor Lewis becomes an exercise for many of us to value other things that make up a hockey team other than pure, outright scoring and offensive dominance.
For two million a year, the 29-year old brings a lot to the table, but not enough obvious things that makes people appreciate the contract he just signed.
How do you evaluate Trevor Lewis?
For five years running now, the Utah native has won the Kings "Unsung hero" award. At this point, they might as well rename the award, "The Trevor Lewis award"
How does he get that reputation?
Watching Lewis play it can be hard not to root for him. His tireless work ethic can be seen in almost every game as he pursues the puck, opposing carriers, and jumps up and down the lineup in whatever position the Kings need.
No better example of his work ethic coming to fruition exists outside of the following two plays:
Jarret Stoll's Game 5 OT winner that eliminated the Canucks in the first round of the 2012 playoffs:
And his drive to the net that tucked away the dagger goal in Game 6 of the 2014 Finals against the Devils:
Both are perfect examples of the easy, simple, and coachable nature of Trevor Lewis. In the world of cliches he is a hard working player who does a lot of little things right. He will drive the net, cycle tirelessly, and plays a strong defensive game which costs his team very little when he is put on the ice.
In fact, overall Lewis was the third best player on the Kings this season behind Marian Gaborik and Tyler Toffoli in exiting his zone with control of the puck (60 game sample). He was particularly strong at using his plus skating at getting the puck out on his own terms (Skating it out)
There were some negatives to his game on the OTHER side of the puck. However, before we get to the negatives, let's just say it is never for lack of trying. It is never that with No. 22. That kind of stuff, despite the lack of offensive numbers, DOES show up in his underlying ones in many ways.
In terms of offense, of course, there is not much to write home about as Lewis ranks in near the bottom of the list of players over the past three years (Who have played at least 500 5v5 minutes)
Also worth noting is that his relative stats in terms of Fenwick and Corsi are just about break even, which is neither good or bad, but given his style it is definitely okay.
What helps Lewis in these numbers is something that's actually amusingly contradictory when you take in everything.
He generates plenty of chances, he suppresses chances against, but he sadly has the second lowest shooting percentage of Kings players over the past three years at 5.06%. Only Nick Shore (with a 3.79%) in his one season has registered a lower shooting percentage than Lewis.
This has led to some incredibly lopsided numbers, especially when it comes to scoring.
For example, this year the Kings assembled a line that might as well have been called the "All Swedish, no Finnish" line.
Trevor Lewis was placed on the wing of Nick Shore and Dustin Brown. The line was by both a statistical and visual account one of the most dominant lines the Kings assembled all year. Where it didn't translate, which is often the case with Lewis, was on the scoresheet.
@SirJDL my favorite part of this: the Brown-Shore-Lewis line scored on their first shot attempt on their first shift of 2015-16. And then...
Prepare yourselves for epic weirdness using the amazing tools we have available to us from Corsica.Hockey
The Kings have had 47 different line combos over the past three seasons that have played at least 50 minutes or more (believe me, I counted).
The top THREE lines that the Kings have put together in terms of expected goals for (Which accounts for shot distance, shot quality, scoring chance type, etc.) have all had Trevor Lewis on them.
This year's line of Brown and Shore ranked second in terms of line chance generation and what they SHOULD have been doing in terms of scoring. Common trend, they did not score, but they had tons of chances, and gave up very few because they had the puck a ridiculous amount of the time.
Defensively, Lewis has been a member of the top two lines in terms of expected goals against mainly because of that theory.
Also note that Lewis is a member of 4 of the top 10 expected goals against lines. Only Kyle Clifford shows up as many times.
Again, the problem here though is that the Lewis lines rarely actually DO score to take advantage of their opportunities.
It is in a nutshell, the meshing of expectation and realization. Trevor Lewis executes about as well as any Kings forward on the team in terms of basic, simplistic game plans implemented by the coaching staff. He does all the right things, but he just never cashes in on it.
You can call it bad luck if it is simply one season (like what we may be seeing with Nick Shore hopefully), but with Lewis it is a career trend.
The frustration is certainly something that is warranted, and one of the major reasons people questioned the two million dollar price tag for him and the term of four years.
All these numbers mean nothing if you cannot actually put the puck in the net.
Despite great expected goals against and goals for, the actual goals against rank 6th on the team per 60 minutes (Which isn't bad) while the goals for ranks third to last (okay that's not very good). So the averages actually come out in the negative for Lewis in kind of an unfair way. He gives up so little, but he scores even less.
Another funny thing with Lewis is his type of zone entry. This follows suit with the sort of contradictory nature of his results.
He is fairly good at zone entries, ranking 5th amongst King forwards this year with 71% success rate. His speed led to a team high 80.2% success rate CARRYING THE PUCK IN!
Good job Trevor Lewis.
The problem, he rarely did it. He instead opted for dump ins more frequently. Half of Lewis's attempted zone entries were dump in plays, while just 37.1% came via the carry, despite him having outstanding success via carrying the puck in. Again, Lewis's incredibly coachable and simple style may have been a detriment to him when it came to cashing in. While there are flashes of ability from Lewis that show he is capable of more than dump ins and grind and cycle shifts, he often opts for the lower risk, more coach friendly style.
Despite the context of our evaluation, this is not really a bad thing.
One final thing before wrapping up, Lewis is the third most frequently used penalty killer on the Kings over the past three years next to Anze Kopitar and Jeff Carter. The gap from No. 3 to No. 4 on that list is pretty big also.
This brings us to a key point with Lewis. He is a pro's pro. Mike Futa said as much after the Lewis deal went down the other day. He is a coach's dream.
Futa, on Lewis: "He’s what we talk about when we talk about building a winning culture, and he basically sat there on the backburner...
He took a lot less to come back with the L.A. Kings as well. While the contract comparables of Casey Cizikas and Marcus Krueger likely didn't play THAT much of a role in his negotiations, Lewis could have easily hit the open market and got $3 million dollars a season from a contending team. His winning background, good defensive numbers, willingness to play anywhere on the roster and anywhere in the system, make him a valuable, low-risk, swiss army knife style player.
While his lack of offensive production can be downright frustrating, his tireless work ethic and good attitude on and off the ice is a really nice chip to have around a team that is going to be younger next season and beyond. Comparably, there is no other players on the market currently that bring the same sort of proven toolset that Trevor Lewis has. Emphasis on proven. While you could certainly stick younger players with little experience in there, Lewis is a player the Kings know and have built on over the years.
four years is doable, and two million is certainly a low enough cap hit to work with. Worst comes to worst, it is not a contract that kills you to move or bury in some capacity.
While it can be hard to see the outright value in such a player due to his extraordinarily rough offensive numbers, it is there, and it is worth what the Kings are paying. Probably more to be honest, but that is Trevor Lewis for you.
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