The Kings’ needs are obvious with Friday’s NHL deadline looming, but is the price to meet them too high? For the Ducks, the question is will they make a push to end their six-year playoff drought or continue their build for the future?
The Kings entered the weekend third in the Pacific Division, five points up on Vancouver for the division’s final automatic postseason berth. But after being eliminated by Edmonton in the first round in each of the last three postseasons, simply getting to the playoffs is no longer enough. The only way to show progress is to get past the first round for the first time in more than a decade. And this team may need help to do that.
The Kings’ biggest wants are a second-line center and a right-handed-shooting winger who can help a feeble offense that ranked 24th in the 32-team league in goals and 30th on the power play, where it had a 14.7% success rate, entering Saturday night’s game with the St. Louis Blues.
The Kings haven’t won a postseason series in Rob Blake’s eight seasons as general manager, leaving him on the hot seat as another first-round series with Edmonton looms. A team spokesman declined an opportunity to have Blake discuss his plans for the trade deadline, and coach Jim Hiller offered little insight into their plans.
“Blakey and I talk about it,” he said. “Those guys have been working on that for a long time; talking, meeting, watching videos, evaluating players. We just go with what we’ve got. If we get to add somebody that helps us, we’ll take that too.”
Last season, with just $2.5 million in cap space at the deadline, the Kings stood pat, then made their customary early exit from the postseason. This season Blake has nearly double the space to work with — in addition to the knowledge that the cap will rise by $7.5 million before next season and $25.5 million over the next three seasons.
Over the last week the Kings have begun positioning themselves as potential players at the trade deadline. They need a dependable top-six forward to complement Quinton Byfield, Alex Laferriere and Warren Foegele — and Blake may be getting desperate because the highly touted Byfield, 22, reportedly has emerged as a piece the Kings might be willing to give up.
Among the players the Kings have been linked to are center Ryan Donato of the Chicago Blackhawks and Luke Kunin, a right-handed-shooting forward with the San José Sharks. A more ambitious approach could yield forward Rickard Rakell, whom the rebuilding Pittsburgh Penguins might be willing to part with. Rakell, who spent 10 seasons with the Ducks, can play on either wing and has 25 goals and 24 assists this season.
In addition to Byfield, the Kings have 21-year-old defenseman Brandt Clarke to offer in trade, although the team repeatedly has said Clarke won’t be moved.
If the question for the Kings is how much will they to pay for what they need, the Ducks have to decide if they’re content to sit out the deadline altogether. The team’s long-suffering fans hasn’t seen a playoff game — must less a winning season — since 2019. But the Ducks, the second-hottest team in the Western Conference at 7-2-1 in their last 10 games, entered Saturday night’s game with Chicago just six points out of a wild-card berth with 24 games to play.
Over the last three years, general manager Pat Verbeek has carefully nurtured a young, talented core led by 20-year-old forward Leo Carlsson, 21-year-old defenseman Pavel Mintyukov and 22-year-old forward Mason McTavish. The team is still a couple of seasons from being a legitimate Stanley Cup contender but it has kept pace with Verbeek’s plan, which was to play meaningful games down the stretch this season.
And Verbeek said he won’t deviate from that strategy now.
“Plans can have little variables put into the into them, but ultimately when I went down this road, there’s going to be draft and develop, draft and develop, then you add around the edges,” he said. “Our younger players, there’s still a lot of development to happen yet. So throwing your chips in, we’re not at that point.”
Verbeek has plenty of cap space — about $12 million — and first-round picks this year and next to trade, so next week’s trip to Western Canada could change his thinking. The Ducks play Edmonton and Vancouver, whom they trail in the standings, in back-to-back games. If they take three points from the pair, the pressure to make a move may grow. Lose both and the team likely will stand pat.
Among the players Verbeek could part with in a deal is goaltender John Gibson, 31, the only holdover from the Ducks’ last playoff team. Gibson, who missed the last three games because of an upper-body injury, was scheduled to start Saturday, perhaps an audition for a trade.
“Something has to has to knock my socks off,” Verbeek said of what it would take to make a deal.
“That’s a lot of hypotheticals. If this happens, if that happens. There’s a week until the trade deadline. I’m going to keep assessing up until then.”
