Kings Depth Chart (6): Goalies

6’1″, 212, 25 years old (26 in January)

Two years left on his deal, at which point he’s a UFA.
He’s the elder-statesman, he’s the #1, he’s had two pretty fabulous seasons back-to-back, and let’s not forget, as he himself said, “it’s no secret I have mind control powers.”

5’11”, 186, 22 years old (23 in August)

Two years left on his deal, at which point, he’s an RFA.
After owning the AHL and winning all three NHL starts season before last, it took Bernier a few months to get the hang of not playing every night.
He was excellent after the All-Star break.
One of Quick or Bernier is required to be included in every Kings trade rumor now. I’ve been wrong before, but I would be shocked if either was dealt before 2013.
For the first time in franchise history, the Kings have a truly solid, young one-two punch.
And if 2009-10 taught us anything, it’s that there’s a price for wearing Quick out. We need someone who can handle 20-30 games.
Also, inj****s happen, and both these guys are cheap, until 2013 anyway.

6’4″, 187, 21 years old (22 in January)

Two years left on his ELC. Interesting that Jones, Quick and Bernier all are due for new contracts in 2013.
Jones had a fairly spectacular year in Manchester, effectively leap-frogging Jeff Zatkoff in the pecking order.
He’s the de facto starter in Manchester now. I assume we’ll only see him this season if there are inj****s.

6’3″, 170, 23 years old (24 in July)

Jones’ ascent and Berube’s graduation from juniors will make the next five or six weeks interesting for Jeff Zatkoff.
He’s due for a new contract. He had a spotty but more or less respectable season that is probably seen by most people as a disappointment.
Berube, next on the list, is more than capable of backing up Jones.
The question is, is that enough for Lombardi to give up on Zatkoff? If not, is he willing to have Berube play out the year in the ECHL?
This one is hard for me to handicap. I’ve gone back and forth several times, both in terms of what I think should happen and what I think Lombardi will do.
Today I’m leaning toward a minor trade on draft day that gets us a middle round pick for Zatkoff. I’ll probably have a new theory tomorrow though.

6’1″, 170, 19 years old (20 in July)

Had a great season in the Q, got rewarded with a contract.
As I said above, I don’t know where Lombardi will put him. Ontario or Manchester?
If Jones is an insurance policy for when Bernier and Quick are due new contracts, Berube is the insurance policy for Jones. There’s always someone cheaper waiting to take your job.

If everyone stays healthy, my expectation is probably the same as yours, that Quick and Bernier will do essentially what they did this past season, with a roughly 56/26 split.
I think it’s reasonable to expect Bernier to be better on the whole, since he had kind of a slow start last fall.
I also expect both Bernier’s and Quick’s shoot-out numbers to regress to the mean, Bernier up, Quick down. Just the law of averages.
I expect Jones to start in Manchester with either Berube or Zatkoff as his back-up.
And of course, Lombardi will pick up a new goalie at the draft, just to keep it interesting.
Overall, I expect stability and consistency at both the AHL and NHL level. Is this the Kings were talking about?

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