Defenseman signed
The Kings today signed defenseman Drew Bagnall to an entry-level contract. Bagnall, who turns 24 in October, spent four years at St. Lawrence University (he was a teammate of John Zeiler). At 6-foot-3, 220 pounds, he's known as a bruising defenseman with some offensive skill. Bagnall spent four years at St. Lawrence and scored a career-best 25 points last season, when he was the only defenseman to be named as a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award. He was a sixth-round pick by Dallas in 2003 and his rights (and a draft pick) were traded to Florida in 2004 for...Valeri Bure! Bagnall recently became a free agent when he couldn't reach terms with Florida.
You can check out a Hockey's Future analysis of Bagnall right HERE

J.P. Hoornstra writes about NHL and IHL hockey for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. He welcomes any and all dialogue on the finer points of hockey.
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Jill Painter joined the Daily News in 2000 and during the last eight years she's covered the Dodgers, Cal State Northridge, UCLA, Kings, golf and everything in between. Even though she's from Colorado, she still freezes in the Staples Center press box but always manages to thaw her fingers in time to make deadline. E-mail Jill at 

So will he be in Reading or Manchester this coming season?
I like the signing, assuming they didn't pay too much. Blake, Modry and Klemm are short-termers, and then you have a question mark in Stuart. Creates competition for who makes the team next season (i.e. 2008-09). Candidates include Boyle, Dallman, Harrold, Petiot, Piskula, Bagnall and probably a few others I've left out. And you can trade the guys we don't want to keep anyway.
Don't mean to get off topic, but NHL.com has a piece on our very own Thomas Hickey, who apparently will be participating in this years Super Series.
Thanks...I'll post a link for everyone to read.
This signing is just another indication of Dean Lombardi's commitment to continue stockpiling young talent for the future. This year's edition of Training Camp should show a very formidable array of good young talent. Hopefully, creating healthy competiton that should help provide a more true evaluation process for management, in terms of exactly where the franchise is with its youth.
With all of these young, left-shooting D-men prospects we have, then why in the heck do we need BRIAN BOYLE to play D instead of Center?
This inquiring mind would
love to know.
IMO, we're loaded at left-Defense.
Let's play BOYLE at FW where he is most comfortable and likely to make the team sooner.