Jason Lewis: How Do We Define "Progress" With Players?

For the record, I like Mcnabb. He's a Young defenseman who will make mistakes but overall there's worse out there. Hopefully Greene can come back strong ... Hopefully. Also hoping the Kings go find a defenseman to fill that top 4 void.... Again, hoping

Off topic Jason but I was wondering what's your take on the Sutter situation. His comments about the Kings possibly not being a playoff contender struck me as bizarre to say the least. Do you think it's a negotiation ploy or do you think he is actually thinking about leaving?

Off topic Jason but I was wondering what's your take on the Sutter situation. His comments about the Kings possibly not being a playoff contender struck me as bizarre to say the least. Do you think it's a negotiation ploy or do you think he is actually thinking about leaving?
- duxcup07

It has nothing to do with the Kings not being a playoff contender next year. Of course they are, without question. Here's the tweet from Friedman concerning Sutter and his concerns.


Elliotte Friedman
@FriedgeHNIC

what the Kings will look like through free agency, the cap and its prospects. Said his family has enjoyed it in LA and "that has weight"...
6:13 PM - 7 May 2016

looking at the improvement of the adv stats for Shore, you can also see his PDO for '15-16 was 95.7, so you can also say his offense was a bit snakebit and you'd likely see improvement next year simply due to reversion.

Still not sold on McNaab and barring any significant turn in his play next season, my take will be the same. There is just not enough between the ears in the offensive zone and is a liability when he has the puck at the blue line, and he is just way too slow. He is at best a 6-7 D in my opinion.

More shot attempts than the opponent
-James Tanner

Still not sold on McNaab and barring any significant turn in his play next season, my take will be the same. There is just not enough between the ears in the offensive zone and is a liability when he has the puck at the blue line, and he is just way too slow. He is at best a 6-7 D in my opinion.
- MikeOxbyg

I think McNabb has the potential to be a 3/4 defenseman. Top pairing is probably a stretch unless he has some major progressions this upcoming season. However, the Kings already have their 1/3/4 defensemen in place, so they either need to develop him for the 3rd pairing or trade him. McNabb probably wouldn't be happy to have his ice-time limited to 3rd pairing minutes, so I can't foresee him staying with the Kings once he hits unrestricted free agency.

I think McNabb has the potential to be a 3/4 defenseman. Top pairing is probably a stretch unless he has some major progressions this upcoming season. However, the Kings already have their 1/3/4 defensemen in place, so they either need to develop him for the 3rd pairing or trade him. McNabb probably wouldn't be happy to have his ice-time limited to 3rd pairing minutes, so I can't foresee him staying with the Kings once he hits unrestricted free agency.
- tkecanuck341

Never have I ever hoped so much that you are right about something, and you usually are, so this is good.

I also agree that we need to pursue a No. 2 along the caliber of what you described in previous posts

Never have I ever hoped so much that you are right about something, and you usually are, so this is good.

I also agree that we need to pursue a No. 2 along the caliber of what you described in previous posts
- MikeOxbyg

Either we decide that Muzzin is a true top-pairing defenseman, and we play him with Doughty all season and make McNabb-Martinez the second pairing, or we go out and get a top pairing defenseman to play with Doughty. I don't like Muzzin and Doughty together outside of the power play. I think we need a Willie Mitchell/Mattias Norstrom type player (stay-at-home, big minutes) to play with so Doughty doesn't have to be the defensively responsible one of the pair. He doesn't have to be a big contract defenseman, somewhere in the neighborhood of $4M should get it done.

I think that a large bit of context that is being overlooked here is that moving up to Doughty's pairing can explain much of the "progress" cited for McNabb. Playing with a guy like Doughty helps you in a lot of categories. It's similar to what happened to Muzzin when he was promoted to the top pairing, and why some of his stats took a hit this year when he was moved down. How much of it is really "progress" when you're benefiting from what's around you? It's certainly commendable to rise to and make the most of an opportunity, but, if that's "progress," then isn't it also "regression" when the opportunity is taken away and your play slips... or is the truth somewhere in the middle? I'm playing a little devil's advocate here, since I like McNabb, but these are things to be considered.

Either we decide that Muzzin is a true top-pairing defenseman, and we play him with Doughty all season and make McNabb-Martinez the second pairing, or we go out and get a top pairing defenseman to play with Doughty. I don't like Muzzin and Doughty together outside of the power play. I think we need a Willie Mitchell/Mattias Norstrom type player (stay-at-home, big minutes) to play with so Doughty doesn't have to be the defensively responsible one of the pair. He doesn't have to be a big contract defenseman, somewhere in the neighborhood of $4M should get it done.
- tkecanuck341

I was just looking at the stats and noticed that the team's 5-on-5 save percentage is the worst when Muzzin is on the ice and by a lot compared to the other top-4 defensemen. In 14-15, those % were 0.937 (McNabb), 0.940 (Regehr), 0.920 (Doughty) and 0.910 (Muzzin). In 15-16, they were 0.940 (Martinez), 0.935 (Doughty), 0.934 (McNabb) and 0.919 (Muzzin). My takeaway from that is that Doughty performed a lot better defensively this year when he was separated from Muzzin and Muzzin performed better defensively when he was more sheltered on the 2nd pairing, all while McNabb didn't really suffer from less sheltering. It would seem to me to make sense to keep Muzzin away from Doughty and on the 2nd pairing and either continue pairing McNabb with Doughty or get a different top-pairing defenseman.

I posted this over at the LAKI blog, and figured it would be equally relevant here:

We have to look down the road to see how much money we want to spend on certain roles in our system. One of our big problems that we have right now is that we're paying top-line salary for a 3rd-line winger (Brown or Gaborik), and $2.5M for a bottom pairing defenseman. In order to compete and fit within the salary cap year after year, you have to have money allocated to certain roles, then go out an acquire players that fill those roles.

We still have one more year of Toffoli and Pearson at inexpensive cap hits. Starting next off-season, we'll have to pay them what they're worth. Assuming the salary cap goes up to $77.7M in 2017-18 (5% inflator increase over $74M), our salary breakdown should look something like this:

Forwards
1st - 6M + 10M + 6M = 22M (Lucic-Kopitar-Toffoli)
2nd - 4M + 6M + 4M = 14M (Pearson-Carter-Gaborik)
3rd - 2M + 3M + 2M = 7M (King-????-Lewis)
4th - 750K + 1.5M + 750K = 3M (Clifford-Andreoff-Nolan)
Extra - 1.5M (Dowd-Shore)
Total = $47.5M

If we resign Lucic, we'll give him in the neighborhood of $6M. When Toffoli gets his extension, he'll likely get around $6M. That first line would be in a manageable salary range.

For the second line, Carter gets nearly $6M, so he fits in that slot. If we keep Gaborik for the 2nd pairing RW, we'll have to give Pearson around $3.25M to round out our 2nd line, which I would say is about right given his performance. This line is in a manageable salary range.

The third line is where we have some issues. King is fine salary-wise at $2M, but Brown is $4M overpaid for the 3rd line. If we are going to keep Brown on the team, we have to use two guys making league-minimum contracts to supplement him (Mersch-Dowd maybe). Otherwise, if we want to keep players like King and Lewis, we have to dump Brown's salary.

The fourth line is manageable, although I think Clifford makes a little much for a 4th line winger. If we're going to stick with Andreoff at center (or another player making a $600-800k range salary), then we can probably afford to give him the extra money, although I don't know that we should. Nolan is fine for the other wing at $950k, although he could be replaced for a cheaper option if necessary.

Defense
1st - 4M + 7M = 11M (????-Doughty)
2nd - 4M + 4M = 8M (Muzzin-Martinez)
3rd - 1M + 1M = 2M (McNabb-Gravel)
Extra - 750K (Forbort)
Total = $21.75M

Unless we want to take away money from the forwards, we have to keep to a fairly conservative defensive budget. Doughty, Muzzin and Martinez fit right into the salary structure for three of the top 4 pairing defensemen, and we can afford to pick up one more top-four guy at the $4M rate. Scuderi will be gone next season, but we'll have to do something with Greene's $2.5M. Once he's gone, that leaves room for McNabb, Forbort, and Gravel for the 5/6/7 defensive roles, all of which will be in the correct salary range for those positions. Once any of them price themselves out of the $1M range, then we either have to upgrade them to our top-4 or trade them away and replace them with cheaper options.

Goalies
5.8M
1M
Total = $6.8M

Luckily Quick is signed long term, and we won't ever have to spend huge amounts of money on a backup goaltender, so this area shouldn't be a problem.

Team Totals = $76.05M
Richards penalty = $1.57M
Grand Total = $77.62M
Remaining cap space = $80K

I posted this over at the LAKI blog, and figured it would be equally relevant here:

We have to look down the road to see how much money we want to spend on certain roles in our system. One of our big problems that we have right now is that we're paying top-line salary for a 3rd-line winger (Brown or Gaborik), and $2.5M for a bottom pairing defenseman. In order to compete and fit within the salary cap year after year, you have to have money allocated to certain roles, then go out an acquire players that fill those roles.

We still have one more year of Toffoli and Pearson at inexpensive cap hits. Starting next off-season, we'll have to pay them what they're worth. Assuming the salary cap goes up to $77.7M in 2017-18 (5% inflator increase over $74M), our salary breakdown should look something like this:

Forwards
1st - 6M + 10M + 6M = 22M (Lucic-Kopitar-Toffoli)
2nd - 4M + 6M + 4M = 14M (Pearson-Carter-Gaborik)
3rd - 2M + 3M + 2M = 7M (King-????-Lewis)
4th - 750K + 1.5M + 750K = 3M (Clifford-Andreoff-Nolan)
Extra - 1.5M (Dowd-Shore)
Total = $47.5M

If we resign Lucic, we'll give him in the neighborhood of $6M. When Toffoli gets his extension, he'll likely get around $6M. That first line would be in a manageable salary range.

For the second line, Carter gets nearly $6M, so he fits in that slot. If we keep Gaborik for the 2nd pairing RW, we'll have to give Pearson around $3.25M to round out our 2nd line, which I would say is about right given his performance. This line is in a manageable salary range.

The third line is where we have some issues. King is fine salary-wise at $2M, but Brown is $4M overpaid for the 3rd line. If we are going to keep Brown on the team, we have to use two guys making league-minimum contracts to supplement him (Mersch-Dowd maybe). Otherwise, if we want to keep players like King and Lewis, we have to dump Brown's salary.

The fourth line is manageable, although I think Clifford makes a little much for a 4th line winger. If we're going to stick with Andreoff at center (or another player making a $600-800k range salary), then we can probably afford to give him the extra money, although I don't know that we should. Nolan is fine for the other wing at $950k, although he could be replaced for a cheaper option if necessary.

Defense
1st - 4M + 7M = 11M (????-Doughty)
2nd - 4M + 4M = 8M (Muzzin-Martinez)
3rd - 1M + 1M = 2M (McNabb-Gravel)
Extra - 750K (Forbort)
Total = $21.75M

Unless we want to take away money from the forwards, we have to keep to a fairly conservative defensive budget. Doughty, Muzzin and Martinez fit right into the salary structure for three of the top 4 pairing defensemen, and we can afford to pick up one more top-four guy at the $4M rate. Scuderi will be gone next season, but we'll have to do something with Greene's $2.5M. Once he's gone, that leaves room for McNabb, Forbort, and Gravel for the 5/6/7 defensive roles, all of which will be in the correct salary range for those positions. Once any of them price themselves out of the $1M range, then we either have to upgrade them to our top-4 or trade them away and replace them with cheaper options.

Goalies
5.8M
1M
Total = $6.8M

Luckily Quick is signed long term, and we won't ever have to spend huge amounts of money on a backup goaltender, so this area shouldn't be a problem.

Team Totals = $76.05M
Richards penalty = $1.57M
Grand Total = $77.62M
Remaining cap space = $80K
- tkecanuck341

All looks good but the one player I don't see getting re signed is Lewis, unfortunately. You never know though

All looks good but the one player I don't see getting re signed is Lewis, unfortunately. You never know though
- KINGS67

Depends on how much money he wants. If he wants more than $2M, then he prices himself off the team. If he wants $2M or less, then he probably stays.

Gotta love those division winners. Only one left standing and they could be out tomorrow.... Playoff hockey, there's nothing better