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The Hockey News -- Rumor Roundup: Flyers Ready to Shuffle the Deck? 

[T]he additional year on Michael Leighton's current contract could make Boucher the odd man out of the Flyers’ goalie tandem. Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal offered a suggestion for the Flyers to improve their goaltending: trade center Jeff Carter to the Minnesota Wild for Niklas Backstrom, or to the L.A. Kings in exchange for Jonathan Quick. Matheson pointed out the Wild weren't winning with Backstrom, who will earn $6 million next season, and badly need more offense. The only problem with that theory is trading away Backstrom for Carter leaves the Wild without a quality starting goaltender, meaning they'll be trading one problem for another. Quick has established himself as the Kings starting goalie, but there's a belief he’ll face a serious challenge from backup Jonathan Bernier next season, not to mention speculation Kings management sees Bernier as the future starter. Carter would certainly provide a boost to the Kings’ first line, but GM Dean Lombardi would have to consider the ramifications of taking on Carter’s 11-year, $58 million contract.

Because this was written by Lyle Richardson, I can't dismiss this rumor out of hand. But I would add that (1) I did not know -- and I'm not sure I buy -- that "there's a belief" that Bernier will give Quick a "serious challenge" next year; (2) speculation that Bernier is the goalie of the future is such old news that it's in kindergarten now; (3) the "ramifications" Lombardi would have to consider would include dumping a lot more salary that Quick's $1.8MM; say, another $3-3.5MM worth, as the Kings will be close to the ceiling this year just by signing their RFAs; (4) there is a rumor that won't die about locker-room poison, involving Carter and I forget who else; I barely pay attention to such things. But if there's fire to go with that smoke, I would expect Lombardi, who traded Sean Avery and Mike Cammalleri, and didn't trade for Dany Heatley, to steer clear; (5) the Kings already have a first line center; (6) the Kings have more centers than they know what to do with (Anze Kopitar, Jarret Stoll, Trevor Lewis, Brad Richardson, Andrei Loktionov, Brayden Schenn); it would be weird for Lombardi to tie up the two top-six forward positions for the next several years; (7) it's not really Lombardi's style to destabilize the back-end by suddenly thrusting Jonathan Bernier (who he's brought along very slowly) into the limelight; the Kings' goalie situation is literally the best it's ever been (okay, that Rogie fellow was pretty good, but in terms of tandems...). Why mess with that, especially since Lombardi believes you build a team from the goalie outward?; (8) Jeff Carter isn't injured, is he? Lombardi only goes for players recovering from injury. This is why Zach Parise makes so much more sense...

But what do I know. The trade will probably happen this afternoon. 

Wednesday skate update; Richardson update " LA Kings Insider
After the skate, Terry Murray said that the Kings would — wait for it — alter their power-play structure (in terms of setup, not personnel) tonight.

Lucky for us, behindthenet has exclusive photographs of Jamie Kompon's clipboard:

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Erik Cole concussed Drew Doughty with a blind-side shot-to-the-head. Despite all sorts of rules to punish this act, no suspension was assessed. And the Kings only play Carolina once this year, so there will be no opportunity for the traditional pay-back (until next year).

I made a joke the other day about leaving Kevin Westgarth in Phoenix to deal with Cole (the Hurricanes were coming in to play the Yotes right after the Kings left Phoenix). Someone in the comments made a pretty funny comment about Westgarth sneaking into Cole's hotel room and short-sheeting him. I have been amusing myself with this idea for several days now.

And it's led to this thought:

Is there anything in the CBA that would prevent Lombardi from trading an enforcer -- say, Jordan Nolan -- into the Southeast Division -- say, Tampa -- with the understanding that Nolan would be traded back in the off-season, all for the purpose of (not to put too fine a point on it) following Cole back to his own division, where Nolan would have 6 games to beat the hell out of Cole. Yzerman and Lombardi could even agree to trade Nolan back as soon as the beating was delivered. Sort of an "exchange student" program for enforcers.

It's not like such a trade would somehow compromise either team, or give them an unfair advantage. Everyone is entitled to negotiate trades that help themselves (that's the whole point). And I'm sure GMs get together and say "I hope you beat the crap out of team x" all the time, because team x losing is beneficial to both parties.

I'm sure there has to be a reason this is a circumvention of the CBA. But it really seems like it should be allowed. You cheap-shot someone because you're a coward and you know you will never play that team again that year, only to find out that the team has sent an enforcer in your division to get you. I said it's like an exchange program. It's also like T2.

Come to think of it, what would stop Lombardi from trading several enforcers to the several teams that neighbor Carolina (assuming that one had a stock-pile of enforcers for just this purpose), so that everywhere Cole looked, someone would be gunning for him?

It's probably a good thing I'm not a GM.

UPDATE: Or how about this as a deterrent...

You take a run at our star, we trade for you and bury you in the minors forever. Hit Doughty, your career is over.

on the SBN NHL front page.

I wrote what I thought was a stupendously brilliant and exhaustive Kings season preview that would have undoubtedly redefined blogging as we know it, had the SBN editing interface not eaten the whole thing leaving you stuck with this:

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To recap, I decided we would poll the population to come up with a single "group" prediction for the Western Conference standings. We ran some polls. It got slightly out of hand. I believe there were fifteen polls in all. I poured over the data in a spreadsheet, got a headache, lost some unsaved work, got confused, whittled stuff away, discovered that the shoot-out point is totally random, and finally popped out the other end with what we (the population of this blog) seem to think the West will look like after the second week of April.

Since I made the whole process up as I went along, nobody should take it too seriously. But here are the standings:

1. Vancouver Canucks - 111 pts
2. San Jose Sharks - 110 pts
3. Chicago Blackhawks - 104 pts
4. Los Angeles Kings - 102 pts
5. Detroit Red Wings - 100 pts
6. Phoenix Coyotes - 94 pts
7. Colorado Avalanche - 92 pts
   
8. Nashville Predators - 91pts
9. St. Louis Blues - 90 pts
10. Calgary Flames - 88 pts
11. Minnesota Wild - 84 pts
12. Anaheim Ducks - 81 pts
13. Dallas Stars - 74 pts
    
14. Columbus Blue Jackets - 74 pts
15. Edmonton Oilers - 71 pts

If I had made my own personal prediction, I probably wouldn't have put the Wings that low or the Kings and Hawks that high. Detroit really ought to be more like their old selves this year, without the injuries and with Hudler back. Chicago, I have no idea how they will do, but I don't think they'll be in the top four. I could be wrong. Nothing would surprise me. I don't think they'll drop entirely out of the playoffs, but 5-7 is totally believable. (I actually wouldn't wish that on them; it's bad for hockey every time a championship team craps out the next season; I'd rather play a powerhouse Chicago than a decimated one.) St. Louis also might finish higher than 9; I kind of think they'll be a playoff team. Don't know who will lose out there, maybe Colorado. Nashville just always seems to make it for whatever reason.

After the jump, we'll look at what I learned about the shoot-out point and how it screws everything up.

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Since the lock-out, no team with an even-strength goal differential of +14 or better has missed the playoffs. In that span, the Kings' differentials have been +1, -44, -33, -31 and +16 (that's the last year of Andy Murray, two Crawfords and two Terry Murrays). Those numbers exclude power-play goals-for and short-handed goals-against. Adding those back in, the Kings' differentials, since the lock-out, are -26, -54, -37, -24 and 20. It's pretty easy to see why the Kings made the playoffs last season.

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