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Yesterday was a tough day. I have read these boards and stayed quite, despite wanting to whine and pout. To those that did post on the subject and did whine

backofthenet · April 8th, 2008, 09:30 AM

Yesterday was a tough day. I have read these boards and stayed quite, despite wanting to whine and pout.

To those that did post on the subject and did whine and do feel bad and have the "pity me's", I feel ya. I really do. It is tough being a King's fan. We have never won a Championship. We have never drafted first overall. Add to that the fact that we are having to play second fiddle to our arch rivals down the street and their future still looks brighter and it just can take the wind out of a fan.

But, I took a long shower. I rested. I took a deep breath. And then I looked some things up.

James vanRiemsdyk, Jordan Staal, Bobby Ryan, Evgeni Malkin, Erik Staal, Kari Lehtonen, Jason Spezza, Dany Heatly, Daniel Sedin, David Legwand.

Those are the last 10 number two picks in the NHL. 6 of those players would be in our top 6. Hell, it could be argued that they would be our best players. 1 of them would be our number one goalie. 2 of them would be on our third line and one of those two would be looking at top 6 next season. JVR would be our top prospect and probable be slated for the NHL next season.

Most of them were making impacts within two seasons, or less.

Are the 1st overalls better as a group? Yes. Crosby, Nash, AO, Vinny, and so on are a better group, but some would argue that they are not better by much.

It would be hard for even the Kings to screw up this pick. We will end up with a very good player. He will be with the Kings in two seasons or less and there is a very good chance he will be making an impact right away. He will be an important piece to the organization.

As far as the UFA signings, they are stop gaps. Wilsie, Nagy, Thornton, Modry are all gone. Cloutier is as good as gone. Calder and Handzues had off seasons. But so did the rest of the team. Worse case scenario is they come back next season and play the same way. Big deal. It is not like we wer4e looking to them to win us a Cup. And, in reality, the Kings are fine with the cap for a few more seasons.

Blake. Man I cannot stand him. But, he will be resigned. And I will be ok with it. He did step it up toward the end of the season and if he can mentor our youth, even a little, then I suppose it could help. The positives are that he does want to be here. That is rare and it should hold a little value. I know his motives are selfish, but what are you going to do?

Goaltending. Labs has another year under his belt. Ersberg now has a taste. Bernier is out of the juniors and in the organization. Zatkoff looked good in college. Maybe we'll catch lightning in a bottle with one of them. Maybe.

So, next season we will be looking at two different scenarios. Maybe we get lucky and we battle for the playoffs, which is unlikely, or, we are lottery bound again.

Either way, our future will be a bit brighter and we will have some more experienced young players to build with.

darklemur44 · April 8th, 2008, 09:37 AM

Thank you for the refreshing breath of optimism. You're totally right.

VegasHockey · April 8th, 2008, 09:38 AM

Right on.

Kingme · April 8th, 2008, 09:43 AM

Excellent post. I too was going to look up 10 years of second round picks for the same reason. No doubt we are going to end up with a franchise player with the #2. I just think that the old timers around here are tired of the "ground hog day" scenario at the end of every season.

dannybuoy1 · April 8th, 2008, 09:55 AM

Pat Falloon.

Sorry, could not resist.

WWAMD · April 8th, 2008, 10:12 AM

The way I see it, we don't need Stamkos. We have players who can score. Yes he'd be nice to have, but we'd lose track of focus if we had #1 pick! Sure we could of traded #1 pick, that'd be nice, but overall I'm happy, now all we need to do is decide which defensemen to get...and hope it's the best one! We need a rough tough stay at home D, we have enough soft puck moving D...so...lets see who we pick!

Plus we have another 1st round pick and a second, a lot of diamonds are found in 2nd 3rd 4rd rounds, eg. zetterberg, datsyk, holstrom, Lucky Luc, Kipper, and so on! Remeber Kopi was drafted 11th 1st round, we most likely have a 15th first round pick as well. We can find another diamond in the rough. I'm really excited about Deanos picks cause this is his forte.

We got a stockpile of talent coming up. Look who we have in the AHL, youngest team, with Teddy winning rookie of the year. Boyle with SIZE and nice hands, Bernier, Mousoul should fill in Thortons shoes and do a better job, Westgate will add grit to a soft team, Harrold will be an improvement over preissing, hanszus will get better, so will kopi, brown, cammy will probably coming out of the gates firiing since he'll be playing for a contract next year and johnson will be playing with a year under his belt. Next season will be fun to watch!!!!!!

**CBGB** · April 8th, 2008, 10:21 AM