To trade or not to trade? That is the question.
It’s the most exciting time of year for hockey fans with every win and every loss having such a magnitude of importance it can swing the standings wildly. Friday’s trade deadline will be one of the toughest for the Los Angeles Kings since 2015 as injuries are forcing the front office to make difficult decisions. They lack depth in a serious way. Their most skilled young players, Alex Turcotte, Jordan Spence, and Brandt Clarke, have already been recalled. They do have a first round pick but no second, third or fifth in this year’s draft. They already dealt skilled depth players Alex Iafallo and Gabriel Vilardi for Pierre-Luc Dubois last summer. They could trade Dubois and potentially open up his $8.5 million cap hit but that seems foolish, even for a desperate GM. That begs the question: how far does Blake push his luck? How far should he push his luck? How far can he push luck?
Week-to-Weak
Adrian Kempe suffered some sort of wrist/hand affliction in the dying minute of the third period on February 27 against the Edmonton Oilers. Mikey Anderson was injured the game before on February 24. Viktor Arvidsson’s poor run of luck continued after lining up only once this season and promptly left after one shift on February 21. Carl Grundström has been out since Valentine’s Day and Pheonix Copley tore his ACL back in December. This leaves the Kings in a very weak spot in pretty much every crucial department.
But don’t look to long-term injured reserve to save them at the deadline. Even though Arvidsson, Copley, and Grundström are all out long-term and their cumulative cap hits equate to about $7 million, CapFriendly indicates that the Kings have used $2.8 million of that relief and will only have about $2.5 million available space come Friday.
More info on Accruable Cap Space Limit (ACSL) can be found here.
That doesn’t leave Blake with a lot of choices, especially since the organization also lacks any real player depth in AHL-Ontario and he has limited picks at his disposal.
Depth on Defense
Following Sunday’s game, the TNT panel suggested going after a defenseman, which, with Anderson out, is surely needed. Plus, it’s never a bad thing to add extra depth on the back end. That was on Blake’s wish list for a while until he decided to trade for Vladislav Gavrikov last season. Gavrikov has slotted in well on the second pair, generating instant chemistry with Matt Roy and quickly becoming a stalwart shutdown defender.
Jordan Spence, Jacob Moverare, and Brandt Clarke have been rotating into Anderson’s spot next to Drew Doughty and doing a decent job thus far. Despite the absence of Anderson, the coaching staff have done a good job of spreading minutes around and not overloading anyone, thanks in part to their recent 11F/7D lineup deployment. But questions abound. Will they able to maintain an 11F/7D rotation for the foreseeable future? That puts more pressure on the forwards, concerns of which Phil Danault brushed off. Can the team successfully weather this storm? Or should Blake try to find a new partner for Doughty until Anderson returns?
Fast Forward
Depending on the extent of his injury, which appeared to be some sort of hand/wrist affliction, Kempe could possibly return in time for the playoffs. If that happens, that’s better than any trade deadline pickup. The worrisome unknown is can the Kings ride out his absence long enough to even make the postseason? Or, since there are three wingers out, should Blake look to shore up their bottom-six?
There’s so much parity around the league this year, it’ll be challenging to find someone suitable who won’t cost a fortune either in cap hit or assets. There are few available impactful players and many bubble teams eager to play in late April and beyond. Looking solely at UFAs for this year on standard contracts (i.e. no RFAs or 35+), filtering for deals $5 million or less (decreasing the need for a third team to eat cap space), removing any current playoff teams, that leaves fewer than 30 candidates. Some interesting names on that list include Tyler Toffoli (NJD), Valdimir Tarasenko (OTT), Alexander Wennberg (SEA), and Oskar Sundqvist (STL).
Wennberg being on a division rival automatically increases his price, but being a center also increases his utility, which could be a boon for L.A. However, rumor has it that the Colorado Avalanche and New York Rangers are both interested in his services. He also had a modified No Trade Clause, which could make things difficult.
Sundqvist only makes $775,000 with St. Louis and is listed as a center and a right wing. At 6’3 and 209lbs, the Swede could be a suitable replacement for Grundström. His offensive skills may not seem impressive with 21 points in 60 games but consider that Grundström’s career high was 18 points in 57 games played last year and he only had 8 in 50 matches so far this year. As a fourth line center/winger, Sundqvist could be a decent low-cost option. His fancy stats are slightly eyebrow raising but the Blues are currently the third worst team in CF%. On a better defensive team like L.A., his individual stats will likely improve.
Blake could possibly bring back Toffoli, who has tallied 44 points in 60 games. That’s decently impressive for a team as bewildering as the current iteration of the Devils. It’d probably be fairly easy to slot him alongside Dubois or Danault and he’s familiar with the team’s system having played for Todd McLellan and new coach Jim Hiller hasn’t really changed much systems-wise. Toffoli doesn’t have any prohibitions in his contract but New Jersey General Manager Tom Fitzgerald stated in a press conference that he’s “not shopping Tyler Toffoli.” That doesn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t trade him for the right price. But at 32 years old with a $4.25 million cap hit and Fitzgerald’s seeming unwillingness to part with him, this may not be the right move for L.A.
If the Kings really want to go down the nostalgia route, Tanner Pearson is available from the Montreal Canadiens. He only has 11 points in 42 games but he’s got size and he could probably slot in well enough on the fourth line with Trevor Lewis and Blake Lizotte. If the Habs are willing to hold back $1 million of his salary, it’d be easy to fit him under the cap.
Rentals are notoriously expensive, though. A player with some term might be a more cost effective option. Looking to UFAs in 2025, there are 50 possible options. Even including contending and playoff teams but excluding players with any form of no move or no trade clauses, pickings are still slim. Gustav Nyquist is having a good year with Nashville, but he’s 35 years old. Nick Bjugstad is only 32 years old and the Arizona Coyotes aren’t exactly lighting the world on fire, so he could be a viable target, especially with a $2.1 million cap hit. Maybe the Kings can trade back for Alex Iafallo since they desperately need depth. Whether or not the Winnipeg Jets hold back half of $4 million his salary is a big question mark (even assuming they would send him back to L.A.)
This is obviously a non-exhaustive list of potential trade targets but are likely to either be in the rumor mill or wearing a new sweater by the weekend.
As a last-ditch option, Blake and Hiller could sit down and have a serious conversation with Arthur Kaliyev about finishing out the season strong in Los Angeles with the promise that Blake will do his best to trade him over the summer. Kaliyev, 22, has been in and out of the lineup this season, scoring 6 goals and 8 points in 44 games. He’s struggled often to find his perfect role with the Kings, moving all around the bottom-six and looking slightly uncomfortable every few games. It seemed like McLellan didn’t quite know what to do with him and Hiller hasn’t really been able to change any of that. Since Kaliyev prefers a fresh start elsewhere, he could be the only real bargaining chip Blake has.
Keepers of the Cages
This is probably the trickiest area for Blake. Cam Talbot and David Rittich have done well enough over the course of the season. Everyone goes through periods of struggle and when the team in front of either netminder isn’t at their sharpest, Talbot and Rittich can’t save them. That is to say, a league goalie is fine for the regular season but the Kings need an elite goaltender who can steal games in the postseason.
The goalie market is even more volatile than the forward one, especially at the deadline. New Jersey has reportedly already kicked the tires on basically every available goaltender there is to no avail. However, should the opportunity present itself, the Kings should seriously consider looking to their neighbors down the I-5.
John Gibson may have lost a step or two since 2014, but he’s still a big game player. The Anaheim Ducks are by no means a good team and yet Gibson has maintained a very respectable .913 save percentage. At age 30, he’s four years younger than Talbot and three years younger than Rittich. He does have miles on his body, but he’s still worth considering.
All value is intrinsic so a Stanley Cup victory may ease whatever burden it took to acquire his services and he could very well be the thing that puts this very good team over the top. The hardest part would be trying to fit him under the cap. He has three years at $6.4 million left on the original 8 year contract the Ducks signed him to. Maybe Pat Verbeek does his pal Blake a solid and eats 50%–at least for this year. Los Angeles still needs to find an additional $900k and let next year’s cap issues be a problem for later. Enter: Kaliyev. His $894,167 combined with the team’s $2.58 in available space should be just enough to squeeze Gibson under and provide value going back to Anaheim (besides a draft pick). The down side, though, is that means dealing the last bit of depth they have remaining and no ability to make any other moves.
Here’s why this deal makes sense for the Kings: they have zero (0) NHL-ready goalie prospects. In fact, they only have three prospects in their entire system: Erik Portillo, 23, AHL-Ontario; Juho Markkanen, 21, Liiga-HPK; Hampton Slukynsky, 18, NCAA-Northern Michigan Univ. The latter two are currently unsigned. Aaron Dell, who has been playing on an AHL only deal in Ontario since December and signed an NHL contract on Sunday, is third on the depth chart. Meaning in case of injury to either Talbot or Rittich, Dell is their next best (read: only) option.
Talbot and Rittich are fine stopgaps but at some point, you have to go for it. Even though Dubois was arguably a splashy trade, Blake’s moves so far have been relatively safe — he’s the Little Dutch Boy plugging holes in the dam except more and more cracks keep appearing. Gibson gives the team an excellent option in net and the best chance at finally besting division rivals. Blake’s options are severely limited, hampered in part by his own poor salary cap management. However, sitting on his hands and hoping for a miracle is not one of them.