For those who question the passion, loyalty and knowledge of Kings’ fans, Saturday morning's standing room only crowd should dethrone the doubters. Here is my first installment from the Breakfast with the GM.
Kings’ Measuring Stick:
Lombardi talked tough turkey Saturday starting with the gauge he uses when grading the Kings. Los Angeles is worlds away from Detroit, Dallas, San Jose and Anaheim. Dean defined the middle tier teams as Calgary and Chicago. The measure he uses are Phoenix and St. Louis and that the Kings better be ahead of those franchises. This was due to the fact that it is these two teams that are using the same formula as Lombardi but who started executing this plan after him. In fact, without naming which franchise, Lombardi took a phone call from one of these rival measuring stick teams where the GM called him and said,
“You SOB, you are ahead of us.”
Lombardi explained he is following the Dallas, not the Detroit model of building the team’s defense. He sees Detroit as a puck possession smaller defense puck moving model. He sees Dallas as a combination of skill/puck movers and tough to play against defense and it is this example he is working to duplicate.
Kings’ Goaltending Prospects:
When asked whether Bernier would make the club, Lombardi responded that it would be a mistake to discuss separately Bernier without including Zatkoff and Quick into the conversation. He compared these A-quality prospects to Nabakov, Kiprusoff and Toskala. He then said the goal isn’t to get Bernier to the NHL solely, but rather he gave the following keys being applied to all three prospects:
• Just let them play;
• Make them better every day;
• If they are not mentally strong, they will fail;
• Goaltenders cannot hide the way forwards/defensemen can, the Kings are growing/developing these three into becoming better men first;
• Predictions would set up all of these three for failure.
Building the Back End:
Dean started by saying how this is his favorite question to answer…. Not! He then said that he is infinitely aware that this is an issue now but it will not been an issue down the road. The best elite defensemen, (like elite goaltenders), plain do not hit the market. Greene and Gauthier were both brought in to address this now. He is also making an effort to bring in one veteran defenseman prior to the season. Hextall refused to say who and Lombardi gave no hints on the identity of this player.
As to the future, Teubert is the ideal he is seeking. Many of us saw the NHL Draft Combine when Lombardi talked about one prospect that knocked his socks off. While Dean never said that unnamed person was Teubert, he did share this: Teubert’s junior coach, unnamed but presumably from the Regina Pats, told the Kings that Teubert is a Jason Smith type player who has shown a kind of leadership that this coach has not seen in 20 years. Lombardi concluded on this by saying
Teubert is not NHL ready now.
How to Establish
“I am a King” Player Pride:
For starters, the team must be comprised of home grown talent,
not mercenaries . Like the definition of obscenity given by the Supreme Court, when talking about when the organization will have “I am a King Pride”, Dean said he will know he has this when he sees it. These are the intangibles of character and chemistry that must be built and can solely come from home grown players. He went one step further and said you have to separate the players quite literally from their parents, their agents, their prior coaches and when it is just the players together, with the right chemistry, gently stirred comes the elusive …. “I am a King” identity and pride this organization singularly lacks and demands for success to follow.
Terry Murray chimed in that as a coach, he takes the hand-off from the off-ice team and (ideally) develops the following combination of three mandatory ingredients:
• Spirit;
• Competitiveness;
• Attitude.
Taking Ownership:
There was a
huge amount of time explaining how when this happens, albeit bumpy, that great things follow. This boils down to when the home grown talent both meshes and takes ownership/control of the room with a sprinkling of veterans who know their role and simultaneously do not takeover the dressing room is when all of the drafting and development becomes visible on the ice.
Murray explained how when the Flyers hit the cellar that was attributable to a divided team with veterans on one side and the younger core on the other. This power struggle resulted in a separation that bottomed out the team.
I asked specifically whether Lombardi took into account the effect on the veterans he signed when they learned they were merely place holders for anyone that was frankly
not them. For the first time to my knowledge my question rendered Lombardi near speechless. Really. He first stated that the Kings had no more veteran bridge or filler players now. He then said that perhaps he jumped the shark and erred last off-season which shown by the fact that the bridge and filler players took over the Kings’ room.
In the future, and I would suggest in the present, Lombardi continued that the key is that the veterans need to know their role and sublimate themselves to the team’s real core. He gave the example of Linden in Vancouver. In Linden’s last stint with the team; he stepped back and let the Sedins lead the charge.
Murray on the Kings’ Schedule This Season and His Blue Print for the Team:
Murray actually answered few questions since most were directed to Lombardi. When Murray took the question on the Kings schedule this year which shows more home games early and more away games late. He explained that
”You have to earn the right to a good schedule.”. It is apparently common knowledge that the better teams get the better schedule because they earned the right to that schedule.
The Kings have to plain play the games, live with this fact of the business and both battle and deal with this adversity. In other words, the Kings to date have a hand in this. I personally incorrectly thought that the schedule of away games at the end of the year was due to the fact that the Lakers and Clippers got priority over the Kings at Staples Center because the NBA had more clout than the NHL team. (Up front, this was my perception prior to Murray’s answer Saturday. And yes, I know the Staples Center is AEG owned, that was my take.)
Murray gave the following blue print he wants the Kings to adopt:
• Defense;
• Accountability;
• Improved PK;
• Defense must be a 5 man job, not just for the two defensemen;
• GAA must go down;
• Learn the
true value of checking;
• Aspire to being the top five team in scoring 5 on 5;
• Drive, drive, drive;
• Solid positioning;
• Goaltenders should stop more pucks by blocking shots and through their positioning than just stopping pucks in today’s NHL;
• Smart play;
• Quick puck movement;
• Puck possession;
• Players being in front of the puck, not behind, so that one of the defenseman can join the forwards on the attack when breaking out.
Final Remark:
There is more to follow including an interview I did Saturday with Terry Murray. This is an opening to wet everyone’s whistle.
Carla Muller Carla.hockeygal@att.net 
Carla Muller
Kings' State of the Union: The Players Taking Ownership 
