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The Los Angeles Kings made their second notable trade of the offseason, sending defenseman Sean Durzi to the Arizona Coyotes today.
In exchange for Durzi, the Kings received the Montreal Canadiens’ second-round pick in 2024. Durzi was coming off his second season with the Kings, where he scored 38 points in 72 games. He had another year remaining on his contract at a $1.7 million cap hit.
We have acquired Montreal’s second-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft from the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for D Sean Durzi.
— LA Kings (@LAKings) June 24, 2023
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A second-round pick is pretty much expected value on a return for Durzi. He has the tools to be a very high-end, offensive defenseman, as an excellent playmaker and great skater, who has both the ability to control the puck and isn’t afraid to fire pucks on net. It wouldn’t be all that surprising to see him pass 50 points in future seasons.
On the other hand, Durzi has also shown fairly major defensive deficiencies in his game. He can make poor mistakes with the puck, be soft in battles, and get caught out of position. While he’s still fairly new to the NHL, he’s also turning 25 years old in October, so you do have to question how much more development you’re going to see from him.
I am a little surprised the Kings opted to move Durzi this year as opposed to waiting until he became a restricted free agent next season, though. As of now, the Kings only have four NHL defensemen under contract and while it was always expected that one or multiple of Brandt Clarke, Jordan Spence and/or Tobias Bjornfot would make the roster, it creates more of a question as to how the team decides to fill the open spots. They could use multiple of their prospects to fill the NHL roles, or we could see them bring in a cheap, depth defenseman (or bring back the likes of Alex Edler). Again though, considering part of Durzi being traded was likely based on cap considerations (even if it only really saves them about $1M), allocating money back to the blue line doesn’t make a ton of sense.
It’s too bad to see Durzi go, considering his ceiling is very high. But the reality is the Kings’ right side of their defense group is likely set for the foreseeable future and Durzi didn’t really factor in.
So we’ll see what kind of moves follow from the Kings but chances are, the team isn’t done yet.
OTHER ARTICLES FROM JUNE
3 players most likely to be traded by the Kings this offseason Kings trade Cal Petersen, Sean Walker and Helge Grans to Flyers Kings re-sign Vladislav Gavrikov Examining the Kings’ cap situation after re-signing Vladislav Gavrikov Goaltending remains biggest question for Kings heading into free agency