[Hipcheck]

I would have liked more moves made yesterday but we had assets that were hurt and below average assets to start with and a marquee name who limited his trade value by only wanting to be moved to 2 select West Coast Teams-thats a bit of a handcuff. If Doug Weight and Keith Tkachuk didnt mind moving to help the St Louis Blues theres no reason Blake couldnt have done the same for the Kings but thats water under the bridge at this point.

That said-anyone who has followed the team for any length of time has no reason to be pessimistic. We have the best group of young forwards we've ever had in our franchise history and some more who should be on the team next season. We've got arguably the best goalie we've ever drafted in Bernier and even Zatkoff to some extent, we had 2 players who made the Junior Team Canada Squad in Hickey and Simmonds.

Can anyone really say the team is not moving in the right direction or really make a valid comparison to say the 1996 team? we've actually got a farm team that the big club pays attention to and actually interested in our young players bonafide development. Trust me when I say it seems like yesterday we were hoping for the likes of Rene Chapdelaine and Craig Redmond to come in and be the saviors. There may be some young posters here that havent followed the team for all that long and while I tempted to say "run away as fast as you can and save yourself the heartache" this is strangely enough the strongest the franchise top to bottom has even been which is weird since the team is in last place. Once again it speaks volumes about the franchises ineptness but stilll sadly, painfully true.

One other item of irony-AEG is arguably the best owner the Kings have ever had. There I said it. Granted the bar is set mighty low but when you look at Kings former owners you had those who simply traded draft picks year in year out and completely ignored the development process, you had Mcnall who is widely considered the best owner and while no one could question his love of the team the facts are he gutted/mortgaged what little farm we had and pretty much made a cup run with other peoples money resulting in him serving time. And once again-Hes the guy considered the "best" owner they've ever had.

Granted AEG doesnt elicit a lot of excitement and pretty much considered a faceless autonomous drone but-they developed a world class training facility at the TSC, Actually invested in not only an AHL team but an ECHL team. Remember it wasnt that long ago that the Kings minor leaguers were loaned to AHL teams operated by other NHL clubs and If I'm not mistaken briefly affiliated with division rival Phoenix. Imagine that-having your prospects being coached by division rivals. Ludicrous but true.

And for the first time ever really building the team through picks and patience. Its painful-but its the right way and something the team has never done for better or worse.

So indeed its a time of Irony-bottom of the standings yet ready to be a consistent winner. Most hated Owner-who has actually done more then any previous. Ironic Indeed. Goodnight, Farewell, and Amen.