I guess maybe you can tell from the headline that my heart’s not so much into arguing that it’s all the fault of Dean Lombardi, who — as the argument usually goes — is just too conservative to pull the trigger on The Big Trade, pony up for Mr UFA, etc.. I don’t believe it, but I will give it my best shot.
A recap of what we’ve done so far: in part one, we identified the problem; in part two, I decided I would attempt to argue each of four (partially but not entirely mutually-exclusive) solutions, starting with blaming it all on the captain(s); in part three, I attempted to blame it all on the coach. Now, in part four, it’s Lombardi’s fault.
So, without further ado, here’s why we should blame Dean:
Everyone knows that to win a championship, you need scoring. Thus, the fierce competition for the handful of elite scorers that become available either through free-agency or trade. Yet, Dean Lombardi is batting a perfect 0.000 in bringing one of these coveted players to Los Angeles. Consider if you will this list of the 40 top goal scorers since the lock-out:
| 10-11 | 09-10 | 08-09 | 07-08 | 06-07 | 05-06 | TOT | CUP? | |
| Alex Ovechkin | 32 | 50 | 56 | 65 | 46 | 52 | 301 | no |
| Ilya Kovalchuk | 31 | 41 | 43 | 52 | 42 | 52 | 261 | no |
| Dany Heatley | 26 | 39 | 39 | 41 | 50 | 50 | 245 | no |
| Jarome Iginla | 43 | 32 | 35 | 50 | 39 | 35 | 234 | no |
| Eric Staal | 33 | 29 | 40 | 38 | 30 | 45 | 215 | 2006 |
| Sidney Crosby | 32 | 51 | 33 | 24 | 36 | 39 | 215 | 2009 |
| Vincent Lecavalier | 25 | 24 | 29 | 40 | 52 | 35 | 205 | 2004 |
| Patrick Marleau | 37 | 44 | 38 | 19 | 32 | 34 | 204 | no |
| Rick Nash | 32 | 33 | 40 | 38 | 27 | 31 | 201 | no |
| Marian Hossa | 25 | 24 | 40 | 29 | 43 | 39 | 200 | 2010 |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 24 | 23 | 31 | 43 | 33 | 39 | 193 | 2008 |
| Martin St. Louis | 31 | 29 | 30 | 25 | 43 | 31 | 189 | 2004 |
| Daniel Sedin | 41 | 29 | 31 | 29 | 36 | 22 | 188 | no |
| Marian Gaborik | 22 | 42 | 13 | 42 | 30 | 38 | 187 | no |
| Teemu Selanne | 31 | 27 | 27 | 12 | 48 | 40 | 185 | 2007 |
| Jeff Carter | 36 | 33 | 46 | 29 | 14 | 23 | 181 | no |
| Olli Jokinen | 17 | 15 | 29 | 34 | 39 | 38 | 172 | no |
| Daniel Alfredsson | 14 | 20 | 24 | 40 | 29 | 43 | 170 | no |
| Corey Perry | 50 | 27 | 32 | 29 | 17 | 13 | 168 | 2007 |
| Pavel Datsyuk | 23 | 27 | 32 | 31 | 27 | 28 | 168 | 2008 |
| Mike Knuble | 24 | 29 | 27 | 29 | 24 | 34 | 167 | 1998 |
| Alexander Semin | 28 | 40 | 34 | 26 | 38 | 166 | no | |
| Jason Spezza | 21 | 23 | 32 | 34 | 34 | 19 | 163 | no |
| Mike Cammalleri | 19 | 26 | 39 | 19 | 34 | 26 | 163 | no |
| Simon Gagne | 17 | 17 | 34 | 7 | 41 | 47 | 163 | no |
| Zach Parise | 3 | 38 | 45 | 32 | 31 | 14 | 163 | no |
| Danny Briere | 34 | 26 | 11 | 31 | 32 | 25 | 159 | no |
| Evgeni Malkin | 15 | 28 | 35 | 47 | 33 | 158 | 2009 | |
| Jason Arnott | 17 | 19 | 33 | 28 | 27 | 32 | 156 | 2000 |
| Patrick Sharp | 34 | 25 | 26 | 36 | 20 | 14 | 155 | 2010 |
| Shane Doan | 20 | 18 | 31 | 28 | 27 | 30 | 154 | no |
| Brad Boyes | 17 | 14 | 33 | 43 | 17 | 26 | 150 | no |
| Brian Rolston | 14 | 20 | 15 | 31 | 31 | 34 | 145 | |
| Dustin Brown | 28 | 24 | 24 | 33 | 17 | 14 | 140 | no |
| Anze Kopitar | 25 | 34 | 27 | 32 | 20 | 138 | no | |
| Joe Thornton | 21 | 20 | 25 | 29 | 22 | 20 | 137 | no |
| Alex Frolov | 7 | 19 | 32 | 23 | 35 | 21 | 137 | no |
| Brad Richards | 28 | 24 | 16 | 20 | 25 | 23 | 136 | no |
| Mike Richards | 23 | 31 | 30 | 28 | 10 | 11 | 133 | no |
The first thing I invite you to do is shrink this chart so you can fit the whole thing on your screen. Then, kind of squint so you only see the field of colors, not so much the numbers and names. What do you see? A bunch of red, right? Those are all the seasons that those 40 highest goal scorers won cups. And if only Dean Lombardi had gotten us any of those guys, we would have w — No, wait. My bad. Red means the team DIDN’T EVEN MAKE THE PLAYOFFS THAT YEAR. How can that be? All these high powered goal-scoring millionaires, and they’re not even in the playoffs? Okay, then what color means they won a cup?
Blue.
You see any blue? It’s in there. Nine times. Nine out of 240 little boxes. Even smaller is the number of players on this list who never missed the playoffs post-lockout. Six guys. Meanwhile, eleven of these scorers haven’t gotten past the 1st round.
The key is:
Blue = cup
Green = lost in finals
Eggplant = lost in 3rd round
Yellow = lost in 2nd round
Orange = lost in 1st round
Red = missed playoffs
Now, here are some of the same names, appearing on a list of the big UFA signings since 2007 (I didn’t include players who re-signed with the same team; only players who signed with new ones). There are some omissions (e.g. Sheldon Souray) which I am correcting and updating as time allows. But this will do for now, because really I just wanted to highlight the signings that led to appearances in the cup finals. There are six of them. And two of those are Hossa. Another is Cristobal Huet, who has his name on the cup, but would still be high atop the list of UFA signing catastrophes. I had previously formatted this list so that everyone whose team missed the playoffs in the wake of the signing appeared in red, but it was too red.
Just eyeballing the names here, you can see a lot of wasted money and albatross contracts. More than half are either total busts or signings by non-playoff teams. Of all the big name players Lombardi is rumored to have pursued, I think only Briere and Hossa made choices they would still make today.
| PLAYER | TEAM | YEAR | CAP HIT |
| Marian Gaborik | RANGERS | 2009 | $7,500,000.00 |
| Marian Hossa | RED WINGS | 2008 | $7,400,000.00 |
| Scott Gomez | RANGERS | 2007 | $7,360,000.00 |
| Brian Campbell | BLACKHAWKS | 2008 | $7,100,000.00 |
| Chris Drury | RANGERS | 2007 | $7,050,000.00 |
| Jay Bouwmeester | FLAMES | 2009 | $6,700,000.00 |
| Ilya Kovalchuk | DEVILS | 2010 | $6,660,000.00 |
| Dan Boyle | SHARKS | 2008 | $6,600,000.00 |
| Daniel Briere | FLYERS | 2007 | $6,500,000.00 |
| Ryan Smyth | AVALANCHE | 2007 | $6,250,000.00 |
| Mike Cammalleri | CANADIENS | 2009 | $6,000,000.00 |
| Brian Rafalski | RED WINGS | 2007 | $6,000,000.00 |
| Paul Kariya | BLUES | 2007 | $6,000,000.00 |
| Cristobal Huet | BLACKHAWKS | 2008 | $5,600,000.00 |
| Marian Hossa | BLACKHAWKS | 2009 | $5,230,000.00 |
| Brian Rolston | DEVILS | 2008 | $5,060,000.00 |
| Martin Havlat | WILD | 2009 | $5,000,000.00 |
| Brian Gionta | CANADIENS | 2009 | $5,000,000.00 |
| Alex Kovalev | SENATORS | 2009 | $5,000,000.00 |
| Michal Rozsival | RANGERS | 2008 | $5,000,000.00 |
| Rob Blake | SHARKS | 2008 | $5,000,000.00 |
| Kristian Huselius | BLUE JACKETS | 2008 | $4,750,000.00 |
| Mike Komisarek | MAPLE LEAFS | 2009 | $4,500,000.00 |
| Jose Theodore | CAPITALS | 2008 | $4,500,000.00 |
| Ron Hainsey | THRASHERS | 2008 | $4,500,000.00 |
| Anton Volchenkov | DEVILS | 2010 | $4,250,000.00 |
| David Booth | PANTHERS | 2009 | $4,250,000.00 |
| Mark Streit | ISLANDERS | 2008 | $4,100,000.00 |
| Nik Antropov | THRASHERS | 2009 | $4,000,000.00 |
| Michael Ryder | BRUINS | 2008 | $4,000,000.00 |
| Pavol Demitra | CANUCKS | 2008 | $4,000,000.00 |
| Michal Handzus | KINGS | 2007 | $4,000,000.00 |
| Sean Avery | STARS | 2008 | $3,900,000.00 |
| Jaroslav Spacek | CANADIENS | 2009 | $3,830,000.00 |
| Francois Beauchemin | MAPLE LEAFS | 2009 | $3,800,000.00 |
| Mattias Ohlund | LIGHTNING | 2009 | $3,750,000.00 |
| Nikolai Khabibulin | OILERS | 2009 | $3,750,000.00 |
| R.J. Umberger | BLUE JACKETS | 2008 | $3,750,000.00 |
| Mike Commodore | BLUE JACKETS | 2008 | $3,700,000.00 |
| Willie Mitchell | KINGS | 2010 | $3,500,000.00 |
| Jeff Finger | MAPLE LEAFS | 2008 | $3,500,000.00 |
| Cory Stillman | PANTHERS | 2008 | $3,500,000.00 |
| Rob Scuderi | KINGS | 2009 | $3,400,000.00 |
| Henrik Tallinder | DEVILS | 2010 | $3,250,000.00 |
| Alexei Ponikarovsky | KINGS | 2010 | $3,250,000.00 |
| Todd Fedoruk | COYOTES | 2008 | $3,175,000.00 |
| Ray Whitney | COYOTES | 2010 | $3,000,000.00 |
| Alex Frolov | RANGERS | 2010 | $3,000,000.00 |
| Brendan Witt | ISLANDERS | 2008 | $3,000,000.00 |
If you think the Blackhawks proved the value of splurging on UFAs, I would just point out that they had the same three players this season and barely squeaked into the playoffs. Why? Because of the lack of depth forced on them by signing those three guys at those prices. I just see no evidence at all that breaking the bank helps you at all.
There is also the argument that Lombardi has put too much emphasis on stockpiling prospects and is not willing to deal them to bring in that one high-octane forward. This is the “Hickey, Schenn, Loktionov and Bernier for Malkin” argument. I almost didn’t address this subset of the anti-Lombardi diatribe because (1) people don’t trade superstars in their prime for a package of prospects, and (2) even if they did, the Kings couldn’t add a $6-7MM contract without giving equal cap value back, because of what’s about to happen this summer with the Doughty RFA extension (yes, the Kings will be more or less at the ceiling). Therefore the only way Lombardi brings in a superstar in trade — e.g. Zach Parise — is if he’s willing to deal two of Brown, Williams, et al, plus sundry prospects and picks — and fans seem reluctant to suggest that kind of thing. They want to add to their hockey cards, not subtract.
However.
I do think there’s one interesting argument to be made in pinning it all on DL, but it has nothing to do with UFAs. It has to do with the two biggest trades Lombardi has made as Kings GM.
And that’s what we will cover in part 4b…