Matt Murray has been a Kings fan since the late '80s, when Wayne Gretzky grabbed headlines by defecting to the West Coast. Since then, he has been a card-carrying bandwagon member as the club soared in popularity with their sole Stanley Cup appearance to their position near the bottom of the Pacific. But things are looking brighter, as he is anxious to witness the rise of the new Kings.
WTF! No UFAs? LOL...
As the dust settles on the first day of free agent signings, fans are scratching their collective heads on why the Los Angeles Kings, who are under the salary floor, didn't sign any of the flashy free-agents who were rumored to be on their way to L.A.
Scott Gomez? To the Rangers. Seven years, $51.5 million.
Chris Drury, who goes surfing with Rob Blake? To the Rangers. 5 years, $35.25 million.
Center Daniel Briere, the other high-profile center? To the Flyers for 8 years, $52 million
Defenseman Scott Hannan? 4 years, 18 million was the price Colorado paid for his services on the blueline.
All over the league, teams were making a splash into free agency. The Kings? They cast out a few lines, but barely a nibble.
Hockey pundits, like Tim Panaccio of the Philadelphia Inquirer, are calling the Kings among the biggest losers of free agency so far.
GM Dean Lombardi is now a sitting "Duck" in the Southern California market. A few years ago, the Kings ran an ad campaign about "serious hockey." It was a not-so-subtle marketing ploy that inferred the Anaheim Mighty Ducks were Disney creations. Who's serious now?
Truth is, Los Angeles has been adrift for too long for things to be fixed by a simple free agent signing. Even Lombardi admitted this to Rich Hammond last week:
Ideally, we'd like to be going in with one or two holes to fill, but we have eight.... We want to be aggressive and fill one or two of them with this (free-agent period) opportunity and then project and say, 'OK, this is what it's going to look like in a couple years.'
Truth is, signing one or two of these high-priced players won't really make that big of a difference on this team. Sure they might give the Kings a few more wins, but they won't make the playoffs. The one thing the Kings did do on the first day of free agency was get Hobie Baker finalist Scott Parse to verbally agree to a two-year deal. The terms of the deal haven't been released.
There are still plenty of free agents out there that would be a nice fit on the roster. Forwards Branden Shanahan and Bill Guerin, and defensemen Brad Stuart and Tom Preissing are still available, as of 10 a.m. Monday. Personally, I'd like to see Stuart in the Kings uniform. We'll see how it goes.
