Trust me Im not celebrating until we get win 4, Quick is deadly. I want to say hes probably worst case scenario first round matchup, not sure goalies on other playoff teams can hold a candle to him.
- BeastModeS62

Yeah, obviously I love having Quick on this team and he is one of the reasons they're still on life-support and not legally dead. He's more than capable of putting together 3 wins in a row in a playoff series. Going back to their first Cup in 2012, Quick has strung together 3 or more consecutive wins in 8 different playoff series out of 11. (That's not a typo either is the crazy thing haha). So he's more than capable of carrying a team at the most important time of the year. But this series in particular looks to have a different feel to it thus far with the consistent problems with the defense playing in front of him. They'll have to play a lot better to allow Quick a chance to work his magic again. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

What size wave are you talking? <3? maybe. otherwise you're talking about full rebuild and that isn't necessary.
Scuds and Greene CANT go because no one will want them. We'll need to package Brown and a considerable chunk of your "wave" to get his anchor off the books, but it will be worth it.
A healthy AMart and one more solid Dman is what is needed.
- Stu17

The thing is, we really don't have a wave of elite prospects to sweep in and surround our core pieces. Through rental trades and low picks (when we get to keep them) the cupboard is pretty bare, especially in comparison to other teams.
Forbort showed he was bluntly the wrong pick, he can maybe be a 6/7 dman.
Gravel showed lots of potential, he is one to keep an eye on.
Dowd is likely a solid looking bottom 6 center.
Mersch a middle or bottom 6 net front presence.
And Kempe the lone high end prospect, and he's not there yet, and no guarantee he gets there.

For today, the lines have to change. I am no fan of Schenn and I was incensed when Lombardi got Scuderi back, because he was trying to build to an obviously outdated formula, but as shaky as the D has been I'm laying a majority of blame on the forwards. The D is terrifying when their on the ice, but when its 5 v 5 they're doing enough. Not only lack of production is plaguing the offense, but there's no zone time, no complete passes, its mind boggling. King is not a good enough winger for Kopi. Versteeg is only effective in a top 9 role, so put him there or scratch him. Get something going. I'd start out trying
17-11-73
70-77-12
23-44-10
22-21-15
I fully expect no one to agree that Shore is in there

The thing is, we really don't have a wave of elite prospects to sweep in and surround our core pieces. Through rental trades and low picks (when we get to keep them) the cupboard is pretty bare, especially in comparison to other teams.
Forbort showed he was bluntly the wrong pick, he can maybe be a 6/7 dman.
Gravel showed lots of potential, he is one to keep an eye on.
Dowd is likely a solid looking bottom 6 center.
Mersch a middle or bottom 6 net front presence.
And Kempe the lone high end prospect, and he's not there yet, and no guarantee he gets there.
- CrownedKing

I know, that's why I don't see "giving the kids a chance." The leap is too big to take for too many of them. This is our team for the foreseeable future, and if you would've asked me two weeks ago (with a healthy AMart) I would've been good with it, but as it stands right now, our top players aren't playing with the cardial commitment that this series requires. I almost even miss Nolan if for nothing else his reckless abandon and check finishing... but then we might be giving up even more PPs... (frank) it, good teams sometimes lose in the 1st round I guess. I would've felt much better about tonights outcome had I seen hand shakes after the Blues game last night.

I know, that's why I don't see "giving the kids a chance." The leap is too big to take for too many of them. This is our team for the foreseeable future, and if you would've asked me two weeks ago (with a healthy AMart) I would've been good with it, but as it stands right now, our top players aren't playing with the cardial commitment that this series requires. I almost even miss Nolan if for nothing else his reckless abandon and check finishing... but then we might be giving up even more PPs... (frank) it, good teams sometimes lose in the 1st round I guess. I would've felt much better about tonights outcome had I seen hand shakes after the Blues game last night.
- Stu17

I feel good enough about our roster, but not always how it is utilized. I think the acquisition of Scuderi was poor, and our pairings are messed up. We also have too many big contracts on the books that aren't paying off (although competitive teams share that problem). I guess what I'm saying is I don't mind our roster, but given what we traded and when and the contract status of some players, this was an all in year without an all in roster.

I feel good enough about our roster, but not always how it is utilized. I think the acquisition of Scuderi was poor, and our pairings are messed up. We also have too many big contracts on the books that aren't paying off (although competitive teams share that problem). I guess what I'm saying is I don't mind our roster, but given what we traded and when and the contract status of some players, this was an all in year without an all in roster.
- CrownedKing

What did we trade that made this an "all-in" year?

Let's take a look at our trades from this season:

Kings acquire Milan Lucic for Martin Jones, Colin Miller, and 2015 1st (13th overall) draft pick:

We dumped Martin Jones, who was demanding a multi-million dollar payday to be a backup goaltender on the Kings. He was getting shipped out regardless, it was just a question of whether we packaged him up for a solid return, traded him solo for a middling draft pick, or waited to see if someone signed him to an offer sheet. We traded Colin Miller, a promising, yet very green defensive option, something that the Kings currently have an abundance of. We traded away our 1st round pick from last season, which was the biggest piece of this deal, but in return we got what amounted to the best natural left winger the Kings have had since the days of Luc Robitaille and Ziggy Palffy. He was very successful for this Kings this season, and there's no reason why we shouldn't expect him to be back next season. DL might have to make some trades to make it work, but I find it unlikely that Lucic isn't a King next season.

Kings trade Jordan Weal and a 2016 3rd round pick for Luke Schenn and Vincent Lecavalier:

This trade was all about replacement players. The Kings had to fill the 3C void left by the departure of Stoll & Richards, and the defensive void left by the season-ending injury to Matt Greene. Jordan Weal was never going to make this team, and a 3rd round pick was a small price to pay for what has amounted to two solid additions to the team. Neither player will be back next season, but players like Dowd, Shore, and Gravel should be ready to step in and fill these spots. They weren't ready this season, but hopefully another pro season under their belts will get them there.

Kings trade Christian Ehrhoff for Rob Scuderi (retained salary both ways):

Ehrhoff didn't fit in with the Kings and Scuderi didn't fit in with Chicago. This move gave the Kings some cap relief this season, while providing an extra veteran presence to the Kings for next season, for which the Kings only had 3 healthy defensemen signed (Doughty, Muzzin, Martinez). If anything, this trade was about longevity, not short-term success.

Kings trade Valentin Zykov and a conditional 5th round pick to Carolina for Kris Versteeg:

This was the playoff push trade that Lombardi makes every season. In 2012 it was Carter, in 2013 it was Regehr, 2014 was Gaborik, 2015 Sekera. Kings gave up an under-performing prospect that might have made the team 3-4 years from now, but it's not a huge loss. In return, we got some secondary scoring.

Kings trade Scott Sabourin for Brett Sutter:

Swap of career AHLers. Nothing to see here.

I'm failing to see what we gave up that is so detrimental to our long term success. The only things of consequence that we shipped out were a 1st round pick, a 3rd round pick, a solid but inexperienced defensive prospect, and an under-performing forward prospect. In return, we got a successful 1st line LW, a solid 3C, 2nd pairing defenseman, and a bottom-six secondary scoring winger.

K
- Jason_Lewis

Did you happen to notice that the very stats that you just used to try to disprove that Scuderi is the team's 2nd-best defender actually "proves," instead, that Forbort is?

This is the issue that I see with your analysis. You happen to be obsessed with Corsi and rely on it too heavily in your analysis of players, IMO. Everyone wants to play the Moneyball guy these days, but there's danger in going too far and putting too much into the stats. There's a reason why scouts go out of their way to attend games (like Lidstrom coming all the way over from Sweden this week to scout players like Forsberg for Team Sweden), rather than just make their decisions based on advanced stat sheets. It's important to see how hard they work, how they're used, who they're playing with, how they handle certain situations and what their decision making is. There's a great deal of important context that explains the huge Corsi disparity between Scuderi and Forbort that you completely disregard when you casually post the stat as though it's proof of how the defensemen rank relative to one another. Corsi is just a stat like any other that requires a lot of context and can easily be misread and misused.

Anyways, I stand by what I said about Scuderi. I appreciate players like him largely because they tend to be underappreciated by the stat watchers. He, Mitchell and Greene have never had great Corsi numbers, but look at how much the team has missed having players like that in recent years. It's not all about outshooting the opponent.