Who will still be on the Kings in 2013-14?

2013-14, that’s this fall, by the way.

The NHL and NHLPA have apparently agreed to allow 2 buy-outs per club for 2013-14. That’s two buy-outs that will not count against the cap. The point is to make it easier for teams to get below the presumed $60 million cap ceiling. I don’t know what other asterisks and exceptions the new CBA will contain, but let’s — for the sake of argument — assume that the cap rules are essentially the same as they have been.

Here’s a roster I put together for 2013-14, using only players currently in the Kings system. I took the liberty of re-signing some players who will be free agents this summer, and letting others walk. As you will see.

Brown – Kopitar – Williams

King – Richards – Carter

Nolan – Loktionov – Toffoli

Clifford – Stoll – Lewis

(Pearson, Andreoff)

Mitchell – Doughty

Scuderi – Voynov

Martinez – Greene

(Muzzin)

Quick / Bernier

Before you start complaining that Loktionov doesn’t deserve to be on the third line, or that Bernier will most certainly be traded, or that I let go of Penner, Gagne, Richardson, Westgarth and Fraser, or whatever your objection is — just hold onto your hats. We’ll get to that.

We have bigger problems with this roster.

I re-signed Scuderi at $3MM (feel free to sign someone else at a similar value to play with Voynov). I re-signed Voynov at $2.5MM, Lewis at $2MM, Clifford, Martinez and Bernier at $1.8MM, Nolan at $1.5MM, Loktionov at $1.25MM, Muzzin at $1MM. We can quibble about the amounts here, but it doesn’t matter much. Why?

Because this team would have a cap hit of $66.94 million, which is about $7 million over the cap ceiling for 2013-14.

Who will the Kings be forced to buy-out in order to comply?

(Before we get started, assume when I say “buy-out” I mean that Lombardi will of course try to trade assets before he just gives them away; the point is, one way or another, $7MM worth of cap hit is going to have to go.)

Untouchable: Kopitar, Brown, Richards, Carter, Doughty and Quick. But who does that leave? In descending order of cap hit:

• Justin Williams ($3.65MM)
• Willie Mitchell ($3.5MM)
• Jarret Stoll ($3.25MM)
• Matt Greene ($2.95MM)

And that’s it. There is literally no one else whose cap hit is big enough to make a difference. No matter which way you slice it, you’re going to lose at least two very significant veteran players, cup-winners, heart-and-soul guys. Not to mention the fact that Penner, Gagne, Richardson, Westgarth and Fraser will also be gone — that’s five guys from the cup team, plus whoever we have to lose of Williams, Mitchell, Stoll and Greene. And given that Bernier will in all likelihood get moved and someone a few bucks cheaper brought in or promoted, that’s 8 guys from the cup team gone within a year. So much for keeping the team together.

So let’s look individually at Williams, Mitchell, Stoll and Greene, to see who should stay and who should go.

Justin Williams

Why keep him: he’s probably good for 20-30 goals; he’s got two cup rings; he’s cute.

Why let him go: he’s got a history of injuries (though not lately); he’s getting older.

Who can replace him: Tyler Toffoli.

Willie Mitchell

Why keep him: he’s some kind of hockey genius; he’s a warrior; he’s a veteran and a teacher.

Why let him go: old and has a history of concussions.

Who can replace him: I really don’t know. The d in the pipeline include Muzzin, Hickey, Campbell, Deslauriers, and — further on — Forbort and Gravel. None of those is ready to play top-four minutes on d.

Jarret Stoll

Why keep him: he’s excellent at face-offs; he’s a veteran; he can hit; he dates super-models.

Why let him go: he’s over-paid to be a bottom-six center; he’s not very good at wing; he’s kind of a tweener, not skilled enough to be a top-six, not defensive enough to be a bottom-six.

Who can replace him: depends on what you want out of the C3 or C4 slot. If it’s offense, there’s Loktionov. Traditional 3C a la Eric Belanger, then Trevor Lewis.

Matt Greene

Why keep him: he’s a veteran, he blocks shots with his face; he’s huge; he’s hilarious.

Why let him go: he’s slow; can’t play top-four minutes like Mitchell can.

Who can replace him: maybe Jake Muzzin is ready for third-pair minutes. He’s the only one with the size, until Forbort or Gravel arrive, which isn’t happening any time soon.

Conclusion?

Mitchell stays, Stoll goes and one of Williams or Greene go. And as a roster, that would look like:

Option 1 (buy-out or trade Stoll and Greene)

Brown – Kopitar – Williams

King – Richards – Carter

Nolan – Loktionov – Toffoli

Clifford – Lewis – Andreoff/Pearson

Mitchell – Doughty

Scuderi – Voynov

Martinez – Muzzin

(Hickey or other cheap 7th d)

Quick – Bernier (or Bernier replacement)

Option 2 (buy-out or trade Stoll and Williams)

Brown – Kopitar – Toffoli

King – Richards – Carter

Nolan – Lewis – Cliche

Clifford – Fraser – Andreoff/Pearson

Mitchell – Doughty

Scuderi – Voynov

Martinez – Greene

(Muzzin)

Quick – Bernier (or Bernier replacement)

Which is better?

You’ll notice that, in option two, I swapped out Loktionov for Lewis and Cliche. The reason for this is that Loktionov really won’t thrive without a sniper, and moving Toffoli up to the first line leaves Loktionov without anyone to finish for him. Therefore, it makes more sense to go more defensive with the third unit. But this isn’t a good option either because Nolan – Lewis – Cliche is too inexperienced to be effective. Whereas — as in option one — you conceive of the third line as a speed/offense line (a la Granato – Millen – Donnelly), then Nolan – Loktionov – Toffoli is an excellent alternative.

So I prefer option one as far as forwards go.

And it’s much easier for me to imagine Jake Muzzin taking over for Matt Greene. The third pair is traditionally where you would want to break in Muzzin anyway. And Greene is only going to get slower. I’m not happy with losing Greene, but I think he’s less valuable than Justin Williams at this point, especially given how hard it was for the Kings to score goals last season.

This is another reason that subtracting Stoll and Greene (neither of whom is the answer to anyone’s scoring problem), and adding Toffoli and Loktionov while also keeping Williams, is a huge net-positive for the Kings.

So, for me it’s option one, and the cap total for that is $61.64 million. Which means that if the cap is really down to $60 million, the Kings will still have to shave $1.5-2 million, by trading Bernier and replacing him with someone a million dollars cheaper (Martin Jones or a cheap but wily veteran), and then maybe by shaving $100K here or there from those various re-signed players (Voynov, Nolan, Martinez, Scuderi, Lewis, Clifford), you can just barely duck under the cap.

And then hope the cap goes up for 2014-15, because Dustin Brown is due for a huge raise.

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Tags: Alec Martinez, Andrei Loktionov, Andy Andreoff, Anze Kopitar, Brad Richardson, Colin Fraser, Davis Drewiske, Drew Doughty, Dustin Brown, Dustin Penner, Dwight King, Jake Muzzin, Jarret Stoll, Jeff Carter, Jonathan Bernier, Jonathan Quick, Jordan Nolan, Justin Williams, Kyle Clifford, Linden Vey, Martin Jones, Matt Greene, Mike Donnelly, Mike Richards, Nic Deslauriers, Rob Scuderi, Simon Gagné, Slava Voynov, Tanner Pearson, Thomas Hickey, Trevor Lewis, Tyler Toffoli, Willie Mitchell

This entry was posted on January 3, 2013 at 12:51 PM and is filed under Latest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.