LAK AT DEADLINE: A MATTER OF TRUST

LOS ANGELES, CA — With the NHL Trade Deadline four days away and 21 games remaining in a very different Los Angeles Kings season, General Manager Rob Blake remains patient with respect to improving his team. With the Kings tracking a 100-point season and in contention for the Pacific Division title, his patience has been rewarded with what he hopes is a second consecutive playoff berth after three seasons of non-contention.

In a Western Conference that is fully there for the taking with inconsistency across the board from the top eight and the Colorado Avalanche likely not reaching the heights of last season’s Stanley Cup triumph, a bold move from any of the West qualifiers could result in a Stanley Cup Final appearance.

Recently, Coach Todd McLellan said his team – which has been among the NHL’s best on special teams since the calendar flipped to 2023 – can compete with any of its competitors for the Western crown. He’s not wrong, Los Angeles has become a dangerous offensive team and play just good enough defense to give them a legitimate shot to beat any of the West contenders in a playoff round.

With the 12th ranked offense, the No.3 powerplay (yes, a stunning number for any longtime Kings followers) combined with a previously stated commitment that he is satisfied with the forward group, I don’t see Blake pulling the trigger up front by March 3. The work, if any, that he needs to complete is inside the Los Angeles defensive zone. There’s been chatter about adding to the goaltending depth chart (Cam Talbot’s name has been mentioned in the past) but with three healthy netminders (the clear cut No.1 Pheonix Copley, the struggling Jonathan Quick and the looking-to-find himself Cal Petersen), the upgrade is an off-season task.

Unlike the LA cage, the blueline can be upgraded by Friday’s deadline. You know the names: we’re all exhausted from the Jakob Chychrun saga, things took a swerve when the Boston Bruins made the big swing for Washington’s Dmitri Orlov, leaving the presumptive candidate to land on the B’s bandwagon, Vladislav Gavrikov still an option. Other names in no particular order are Chicago’s Jake McCabe, Montreal’s Joel Edmundson, Philadelphia’s Ivan Provorov and Nashville’s Mattias Ekholm.

All would fill the most acute organizational need – a top four left defenseman but as it is at this time of year, it’s a matter of cost. How much of the future will Los Angeles surrender to improve the defense in the moment? What makes the decision both tricky and intriguing is the state of the Western Conference.

Last season, four teams finished with at least 109 points (St. Louis, Minnesota, Calgary and the Avalanche.) This season, Vegas is the West’s top seed on a 106-point pace and despite the Avalanche starting to look more scary as their health improves, if they don’t trade for a center to deliver what Naz Kadri did last Spring they’re not the invincible roster that won it all.

But does that mean you trade two first-round picks plus a prospect for Jakob Chychrun? Or do you wait until the off-season when the assumed price lowers given the acquiring team would have him for two, not three playoff runs? It depends on how you view Chychrun – if you believe he is the singular player that puts Los Angeles into championship contender status then sure, “F them picks,” as Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead said on the way to a 2021 Super Bowl championship. Or do you hold off if you believe that Chychrun is truly a No.3 defenseman on a championship team and what is being asked for him equates to a top pair defenseman?

What tips the scales towards making the move now is the state of the LAK left side depth chart after Mikey Anderson, there’s no one in the pipeline (still see Sean Durzi as a right defenseman long-term, Alex Edler is likely playing his last season, Tobias Bjornfot looks like a 5-6-7 defenseman, Jacob Moverare is an NHL 7D until further notice) and there actually may be a need for not one but two left side defenseman to make the roster a legitimate contender. If you want to tip the scales in the other direction, the argument is that Chychrun is not and has never been the only solution to the left side puzzle.

And despite Blake saying he’s satisfied with his forward group and isn’t looking to trade players off the team, Trevor Moore’s injury status (he’s missed 18 of the last 23 contests with injury) may result in Blake poking around for a middle-six forward in the same mold. But the decisions Blake will make by Friday may come down to something different than cost. There is a valid argument to stand pat – a 100-point team in this season’s Western Conference has decent odds to emerge to the Cup Final.

As Billy Joel once wrote, it may be a “Matter of Trust.”

Los Angeles has been in playoff mode since the middle of last season. They have tasted the bitterness of losing a Game 7 to Edmonton and the heat of a playoff race for a second straight season. The group is not in uncharted waters but need to navigate them better – the nasty habit of losing multi-goal leads and taking ill-timed penalties has to be curbed in the final two months of the regula- season – so to give this team another shot at progression without going deep into their asset pockets rests on not the players who are not in LA, but the ones that are.

• Can you trust the bottom-four defensemen to shut down the opposition in crunch time? Matt Roy and Durzi have provided solid offense (Roy’s confidence in his shot has been a hidden positive throughout the season) but need to more reliable in late game situations. The third pair is becoming more of an adventure as the season lengthens.

• The defense isn’t solely on the spot in those situations. When it comes down to a “shutdown line,” Los Angeles doesn’t have a classic one that thinks defense first (the Danault line would come closest) and the fourth line’s defensive liability has been exposed over the past few weeks. Can you trust the more skilled players on the bottom six to pick up their games defensively?

• Can you trust Copley and Quick to win +/- 13 games out of the final 21 to get to 100 points that should secure a playoff spot and possibly win the division?

• Can you trust the time invested in Quinton Byfield on the top-six will pay off this season? There’s been progression as to fitting into the team’s top-12, but it’s been “the little things” young players need to do to get and stay into the lineup. And while the little things are essential, Byfield needs to start doing some big things (7 goals in 77 games) to make Los Angeles an even deeper and more dangerous offensive team.

The needs are clear and definitive, and they must occur take a team that is trending in the right direction to the level of the NHL elite.

Could it be done by holding onto all their assets and wait for them to develop to supplement a growing core?

It’s A Matter of Trust.