We’re now something like 48 days out from the start of the NHL season so I figure this is as good a time as any to start doing the season previews. This is mainly for two reasons: 1) I am lazy and there’s no way I’ll do one of these every day, and 2) This is early enough that if I just stop doing them entirely you’ll have forgotten by October anyway. Oh and I guess also to show off my near-infinite knowledge of the National Hockey League. I’ll be previewing the teams in reverse order of finish in the 2007-08 season. Please note, though, that this is the opinion of one man, however smart and handsome he may be.
Los Angeles Kings, you’re on the clock.

These guys are good. The rest.. ehhhhhh.
It’s been a tough few years to be a Kings fan.
The team hasn’t made the playoffs since 2002, but unlike the Penguins, whose success has been built upon years of lucky ping pong ball bounces and on-ice ineptitude, has usually finished high enough to get draft picks outside the top 5. Never mind the bad free agent signings (HOW much for a 37-year-old Rob Blake?) and years without a passable goaltending situation (Garon, Burke, Cloutier, LaBarbera, Cechmanek, etc.), the team has been stuck between rebuilding and trying to win for the last several years. At least, I hope so for their sake.
But that’s different now. The GM Dean Lombardi has probably gambled his job on new coach Terry Murray, who has to make Los Angeles actually care about hockey again the way the Ducks almost did when they won the Cup if the team is going to compete.
Not this year. The Kings are going to be an awful, awful team in 2008-09. Like, real bad. The team finished second-to-last in the NHL last season and got worse. A truly great quartet of forwards in Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Alex Frolov and Patrick O’Sullivan return for the Kings, but they’ve also lost sure-thing 30-goal guy Mike Cammaleri.
Not that offense was ever the problem for L.A. to begin with. The problem is, and has always been, defense and goaltending. So when Blake and Lubomir Visnovsky, the two biggest minutes-eaters on defense, left by free agency and trade, respectively, things got appreciably worse. Offensive defenseman Jack Johnson, he of the 11-point, minus-19 2007-08 campaign, and Tom Preissing, who is actually good, is now the No. 1 pairing in L.A. Preissing, though, has only averaged 20 minutes in a season once in his four-year career.
However, they are buttressed by such blueline luminaries as Matt Greene (career 0.09 points per game and minus-31), Denis Gauthier (four points and a minus-11 in 43 games and no playoff appearances with Philly last year), and Peter Harrold (a veteran of 37 NHL games). That’s it. Five NHL defensemen on the roster. And yes, the Kings are way, way below the cap floor so they’ll have to sign someone, but the list of remaining free agent defensemen is, uh, slim. Big Joey DiPenta, maybe? Marek Malik could be yours for the right price. One supposes that the biggest blueline question centers around whether or not 2007 pick Thomas Hickey or 2008 pick Drew Doughty (both as yet unsigned) are ready. If both are, the Kings might not have too big of a problem keeping the puck out of the n…
Oh wait, the goalie situation. Right. Jason LaBarbera is the No. 1 guy right now (by default more than anything else, like merit), with three rookies vying for the backup role that will likely be won by 26-year-old Erik Ersberg. Ersberg was outstanding in his few games last year, posting 2.48/.927 in 15 games, in which the Kings went 6-5-3. But whether or not he’s ready to play 40, 50, or even 60 games (with those numbers, he’s certainly deserving) remains to be seen. The Kings also have promising 20-year-old QMJHLer Jonathan Bernier who was not-so-good in four games for L.A. last year, and Jon Quick, a UMass product who was impressive in Manchester.
Still, there are too many questions, especially on the blue line, to really give this team any sort of credit this year.
More after the jump.
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