Good news coming into a Monday morning is always welcome, so here we are.
- Los Angeles Kings
Separate header probably wasn’t necessary, but whatever. According to reports, Alec Martinez has signed a two-year deal with the Kings, which means he won’t need to have a cagematch with Dean Lombardi in arbitration hearings. And considering Martinez was scratched for large parts of last season and Martinez has some big-time #fancystats on his side, it would’ve been quite the battle.
For Martinez, it’s a higher price than I was expecting; clearly, Alec’s contributions during the 2012 playoffs and regular season were not forgotten. The Kings now have nine NHL-caliber defensemen under contract. Darryl Sutter’s going to have to do some impressive juggling to keep all of them happy; more likely, one of them will probably be traded at some point. Four offensive defensemen, five defensive defensemen…
(Considering the LA Kings Insider and I are both on vacation, it’ll almost definitely happen this week.)/
- So, looking at the Kings’ larger cap picture: three RFA forwards left to sign, and $3.1 million with which to do it. My estimates one month ago gave Trevor Lewis $1.2 million/yr, Kyle Clifford $0.9 million/yr, and Jordan Nolan $0.65 million/yr. However, I underestimated the cap hits of both both Muzzin and Martinez, and I don’t see Lewis getting only $100K more than Martinez anymore. Regardless, this should be just enough room for Lombardi to make it work.
- Because you can never learn enough about Maxim Kitsyn, here’s an in-depth look from Gann Matsuda over at Frozen Royalty.
Loosely Kings-Related!
- Ilya Kovalchuk put pen to paper on a four-year contract with SKA in the KHL. Could he make $15-20 million, as early rumors suggest? We’ll see!
- Dmitri Cheshnokov reports that Alexander Frolov will remain in the KHL as well, with Avangard. Sorry, Frolov enthusiasts.
- From the LA Times: ESPN Zone at LA Live (across the street from Staples Center, of course) has closed, making room for three new, cheaper, more delicious restaurants. What’s not to like?
(Smashburger is excellent, by the way.) - Corey from Shutdown Line posted an interesting breakdown of Kings zone entries, from what I’m guessing is the San Jose playoff series. We (okay, mostly Robert) will be looking at zone entries later this summer and explaining their significance. But all you need to know about this chart is: the first line does well getting the puck into the zone, Carter is a beast, and Tyler Toffoli is mighty impressive. <blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p>I could just name this chart "Kopitar and everyone else." <a href=”http://t.co/LscblZVjM5″>pic.twitter.com/LscblZVjM5</a></p>— Corey Sznajder (@ShutdownLine) <a href=”https://twitter.com/ShutdownLine/statuses/356663748410355712″>July 15, 2013</a></blockquote>
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Finally, a hearty welcome to Nick (who delivered the happy Muzzin news on Friday), and a hearty welcome back to John (who’s doing some great work with the recurring Realignmentpalooza! feature). You should follow them on Twitter. And me. Yeah.