- Anze Kopitar
- Dustin Brown
- Jarret Stoll
- Justin Williams
- Ryan Smyth
- Michal Handzus
- Wayne Simmonds
- Alexei Ponikarovsky
- Drew Doughty
- Rob Scuderi
- Jack Johnson
- Willie Mitchell
- Matt Greene
- Trevor Lewis
- Davis Drewiske
- Peter Harrold
- Kevin Westgarth
- John Zeiler
- Jonathan Quick
- Jonathan Bernier
- Alec Martinez (waiver exempt)
- Oscar Moller (waiver exempt)
- Kyle Clifford (waiver exempt)
- Marco Sturm (IR)
- Scott Parse (IR)
- Brad Richardson (IR)
As of today, we have a roster of (the maximum) 23. Some time in the next few days, Marco Sturm is going to come off the IR and join the active roster. This will require one player being moved; my guess is Zeiler will go back to Manchester. That part’s easy.
So far, we haven’t heard anything about Brad Richardson’s ETA. But at some point he’s going to be healthy. What then? Who goes down?
Moller?
Not if he contributes. Especially not if he gets some power play time and the power play decides to stop sucking. Murray likes the fourth line of Clifford/Moller-Lewis/Westgarth-Zeiler, or Clifford/Lewis/Moller, or whatever it is. He also seems to like Moller-Lewis getting spot duty in the top-six, no less than he previously liked Richardson there. I can see Murray looking at Clifford/Richardson/Moller, too.
Clifford?
No way.
Martinez?
He’s been one of the Kings’ best defensemen the last two weeks. And he’s a valuable, if underused, powerplay asset.
Those three (Moller, Clifford, Martinez) are the waiver-exempt players. Everyone else goes through waivers. By everyone else, I mean:
Drewiske, Harrold, Lewis and Westgarth.
My hunch is that if Moller seizes the day, Westgarth gets waived, and if Martinez continues his excellence, Drewiske gets traded. Peter Harrold, bizarrely, is too versatile to get rid of. And with Muzzin almost certain to be better than Drewiske sooner rather than later, it just seems highly likely to me that D-Drew will be the one to move on.
The first shoe drops when Richardson gets healthy.
The second one drops when Parse comes back.
I think the three names who will drop from the list will be Zeiler (when Sturm is activated), Westgarth (when Richardson is activated) and Drewiske (when Parse is activated). Unless Dean has something else up his sleeve.
Sturm – Kopitar – Brown
Smyth – Stoll – Williams
Ponikarovsky – Handzus – Simmonds
Clifford – Richardson – Moller
(Parse, Lewis)
Mitchell – Doughty
Johnson – Scuderi
Martinez – Greene
(Harrold)
Quick/Bernier