Woah: "team executives" say Jack Johnson is "in play"

Trent Hunter was placed on waivers this morning. Thank god.

I’d be crushed if they traded JJ. Not just from a character standpoint, like Neisy mentioned, but also from LeBrun’s standpoint of a young, puck moving defenseman of JJ’s caliber. Surely he has flaws but I think a lot of people will argue he hasn’t reached his ceiling. I’d hate to see it happen on another team.

I keep hearing the Rangers and Kings are the front runners for Nash. Gotta think Columbus is going to ask for one of the Rangers current players. If so, why would they do this? They are the number one team in their conference; would you risk breaking up the team chemistry for Nash?

I can’t believe that the Hanzal hit on Richards wasn’t a suspension or at least a fine. My main complaint with the league (and all pro sports really) is that they base their suspensions largely on injuries that occur. This, in my opinion, is just plain stupid because many times whether a play results in injury or not is purely luck. A totally clean hit can hurt a guy or a dirty hit can have the guy get right back up. I feel like the league should get an independent party to review the plays and when they send them the video of them, leave out the aftermath of if the guy is hurt or dazed or gets up and is fine. Let the suspension be based on the play and intent and not simply the result.

The biggest reason for all the inconsistent rulings is simply that two identical hits can be ruled dirty or clean based on the presence of an injury. Dirty hits should be suspended regardless of the result and it frustrates me to watch the league simply take the easy way out and lead to more confusion by relying on the aftermath of plays rather than the actual play for determining suspensions and fines.

Lombardi can make a big trade but how often does that work? Rarely does a player come onto a mediocre team (and there is no question that the 2011-12 Los Angeles Kings are a mediocre team, at best) and make any kind of major impact. I honestly can’t think of a single time it’s happened. Usually, the big trades around the deadline involve the contenders and sometimes that does put them over the top (Rob Blake to the Avalanche in 2001, for instance). But the Kings aren’t contenders anymore. They are a middle of the pack team fighting to tread water at the very bottom of the playoff pack. If they go after Rick Nash, is he even going to gel with his new teammates in time to turn this ship around? Doubtful.

Lombardi has already used the nuclear bomb of GM tactics. He fired Terry Murray and made a huge mistake when he brought in Murray clone Darryl Sutter as his replacement. He can’t fire Sutter too. Firing Murray seemed to work for a little while as the Kings were 13-12-4 at that point and the losers of four consecutive games in regulation, but proceeded to go 10-3-5 over the next 18 games (ending with January 17’s shootout win over the Canucks). But since then they are a pretty bad 4-5-2. And let’s face it, even their 10-3-5 record early on wasn’t that great; they still lost 8 of those games, it just happened that two of them were in overtime (one to the lowly Oilers) and three in shootouts. Even their 10 wins weren’t all that impressive since 3 of them were in shootouts (so if we went by old-time records they were a spectacular 7-5-6).

Sure, they were getting points, but did they ever for a second look like a playoff team? Well, to be fair, for 60 minutes they looked like a playoff team on New Year’s Eve when they pounded the Canucks, but other than that they have been ordinary. In fact they preceeded that game by being shut out in Winnipeg and followed it up with a shootout loss to Colorado (that to be even more fair, they should have won had the refs not cheated them, but still…).

The Kings have not won 3 consecutive games under Sutter!!

Since Sutter took over behind the bench, the Kings have won 2 consecutive games only twice. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around this one. But seriously, since the Kings fired Murray the only 2-game winning streaks they have had were a pair of shootout victories over Toronto and Anaheim on Dec. 19 & 22 (doesn’t count for Sutter because Stevens was coach during the Toronto game), victories over Phoenix and Chicago on Dec. 26 & 28, and wins over Ottawa and St. Louis sandwiching the All-Star Break.

They’ve had 3 2-game losing streaks under Sutter, but have yet to lose a 3rd in a row.

Holy S#@!

There is nothing left that I can see. A trade isn’t likely to work out. Can’t fire a second coach. The Quacks and Flames have both been coming on strong of late and the Kings’ hold on 8th is looking more precarious every day.

I came into this season more excited than I’ve ever been about the Kings, or at least since ‘93 when they were coming off the trip to the Finals. And now I’m about as pessimistic about this particular group as ever before.

Under Murray they were shut out only twice in 29 games. They were shut out once under Stevens. Now they have already been shut out 4 times in 25 games under Sutter.

Wow.

In 29 games under Murray they scored 1 goal or fewer 9 times (including games they won 2-1 in shootouts). (2-6-1 record)

In 25 games under Sutter they have scored 1 goal or fewer 13 times!!! (1-6-6 record)

Darryl Sutter is getting even less out of these players than Terry Murray did! They even won a larger percentage of the games where they got 1 or fewer under Murray.

How about 2 goals or fewer?
Murray- 21 times with 2 or fewer
Sutter- 16 times with 2 or fewer

3 or more?
Murray- 8 times (8-0-0)
Sutter- 9 times (8-0-1)