Fine, whatever, lets give him a chance while he's healthy. Mabye he's on the bounce back, who knows?

Nevertheless, I moaned in horror for nearly a minute after reading about this on TSN. How in Satan's most glorious name are the guys going to take seeing Beachball back in the room?

AAAAAAH... the horror, the pain... why Lombardi why??????? is Crawford so desperate to have his favorite beach ball dan back?

what is the point of making this switch? if anything, they should have done this switch with Taylor coming up instead! what is the sense in this?

Is the F______g G.M. off he Freakin rocker.
Finally, it seems like we're establishing a #1 goalie in Labs (whose been very hot of late), only to recall one of the worse goalies in franchise hisitory. This G.M. must really be desparate for Steve Stamkos.
I don't care what Morris said about Cloutier. His record in in the AHL is 4 Wins 9 losses, with a GAA of almost 4 goals a game.

Why not call up Daniel Taylor, whose been like a wall lately. Recorded back to back shutouts and earned AHL player of the month.
DL, this is no time for you to try to salvage a bit of your reputation. It's too late for that. You've got very little of that to begin with (after McCauley, Blake & Handzus). If cloutier starts for our team, it'll take away all the momentum the team has establised of late. We'll probably begin another 8 game losing streak.

And by the way, If this recall was in hope that another team claims him off waivers. FAT CHANCE. Not every team has a idiot as a G.M. like we do.
No team is stupid enough to pay this goalie half the $3.1 Million that this G.M. signed him for.

This has got to be one of the worse G.M.'s in the history of this league.

Maybe DL is trying in some small way to justify the $3.1M he's paying Clouts? Still, with the play of Boyle, Purcell, Moulson, Harrold as evidence, the team needs to move forward with youth, not rehashing struggling veterans.

With the Kings winnings lately they have the possibility of blowing the the first draft. I think this is an insuarance to get that first draft pick!

This is a good move. Aubin has not been very outstanding as of late even though no one expected him to. He has been living up to his career numbers and salary but has not shown improvement. Cloutier may not be back to his old form yet, but according to the Manchester coach he is now 100% healthy and has shown some spark of his old self. We are out of the playoffs so maybe its time to see what Cloutier has again... We are paying him a lot of money so you might as well give him another shot before the season is out, you never know.

Lombardi did a good job of rehabilitating Sean Avery and then getting something for him in a trade. Perhaps the same thing is going on here. If Cloutier regains his form then maybe we can trade him or someone will put in a claim when he's waived again.

We're probably just hoping that someone will take his salary off of our hands. The only downside I see is that Jason's play drops off when he doesn't play the bulk of the games.

For all of the moaning you people are expressing it seems like you're missing some important points: #1 The Kings are paying a huge salary to a guy in the minors. Sure, it's their fault to have extended a contract to an injured goalie in the first place. But if he's healthy and back up to NHL snuff, wouldn't you want him getting NHL minutes rather than AHL?

#2, because of his contract size, it's also a shrewd move to possibly shed half of his contract if another NHL claims him.

#3, perhaps when he gets to the Kings he'll play well enough that he can be showcased for a possible trade. That's a stretch, for sure. But Cloutier in the minors doesn't help his visability.

And who knows, maybe after more than 4 months toiling in the minors he's earned a promotion back to L.A. That WAS the original intent - to send Cloutier down to the AHL to get his game back.

First off, Cloutier couldn't be any worse then LaBarbara.

Secondly, I think this is just DL trying to shop Cloutier. If he gets claimed, great! If not, they're just trying to show teams he can still play so they can trade him. Now that Blake is pretty much off the market (who'd want an aging blue liner with a bum ankle?), the Kings need to find someone who's worthy of another team's attention.

Third, if we admit the truth, Cloutier never really got a chance here in LA. He had 24 games in LA when he was clearly not healthy nor ready to play every night yet.

His first 4 seasons in Vancouver, Cloutier put up a goals against under 2.50 every year. If he regains that form, we'll all be eating our words. Even more so if he regains that form in another uniform, which would be par for the Kings course.

Great move! I support this 100%!!!! The Kings are way to close in the standings to the Lightning (2 pts), in the race for Stamkos. Having Cloutier in net will insure that the Kings absolutely TANK the rest of the year, and will be in position for the #1 pick (pending the draft lottery result).

This is a logical move as Kings have nothing to lose
but draft position one way or another. IF he does well
DL looks justified and if he does not well Bernier is the future anyway.If the Ducks could not trade
Bryzgalov who is better than both Cloutier and Barbs there is no market for Cloutier.

Now the fans can have a focus on their booing at home instead of just booing the team in general.

At least when Cloutier was on the team there was energy at the Staple Center. I'd rather hear a roar of boos then crickets.

Nick, anthony, here's a dollar...

not only was it a smart move, it was an obvious move that everyone should have seen coming. after all... Dean DID allude to the fact that this was likely to happen when he was a guest on Kings Talk, so i have zero idea why anyone would find this surprising.

my 2 cents is that Lombardi is looking to move Aubin, NOT Cloutier.

Are you guys retarded???? Just because Cloutier gets called up doesn't mean he's going to start. Use some freakin logic for once. DL most likely made the move in hopes that some team would be desperate enough to claim Dan off waivers. If he goes unclaimed, then we have another sorry goalie to back up Labarbara. Net effect= zero!!! And if someone claims Aubin, even better! Then there won't be such a log jam at goalie in Manchester. Come on guys, use some freakin logic! Especially you Anthony.

To Paul...are you somehow implying that LaBarbera is not playing well....it can be alot worse than LaBarbera...if you ignore Jason's record and just look at his numbers he is better than alot of goalies in the league.

His save percentage is BETTER than Nabokov, Turco, Hasek, Lundqvist, DiPietro, Legace, Kiprusoff and this list goes on.

The lowest save percentages in the league are above .88. Kolzig and Aubin are the lowest.

Cloutier is .869 in the AHL.

That is a huge insult to our starting goaltender who is playing very well.

if this doesn't give the Kings the #1 overall pick, I don't know what will.

on the other hand, might as well give him his "shot" while healthy before we completely banish him to Siberia. just so we can say we did.

Bringing up Cloutier isn't that big a deal. It's not like it'll ruin the season. In the Mark Morris interview Morris points out that they are carrying 3 goalies who are all playing well right now. Calling up Cloutier allows Ersberg and Taylor more playing time and maybe someone will snatch Aubin. This isn't the end of the world.

@deelo

Yes, I'm implying LaBarbara sucks. See my many posts on this blog about finding an NHL goalie, going all the way back to August.

All LaBarbara does is spit out rebound after rebound. If he'd stop 1/10 of the pucks he rebounds, we'd be in the playoff race.

He's an AHL goalie. Nothing more.

As I sign most of my posts now, wake me up when we get an NHL goalie. :(

Woooohoooo!!!! Stamkos here we come. Stamkos might as well go to his local sports store and pick up a Kings jersey so he can get used to how it looks on him.
Brilliant Dean, just brilliant.

Why are we going thru this again? What's wrong with you people? Can't you face the fact that Cloutier is well past his prime. Healthy or not, he's no good! Feed his ass to the sharks!!!

Please Pokey, don't lump me in with Anthony....I think Lombardi is doing a decent job and i can see the reasoning for bringing up Cloutier. DL would be doing cartwheels on top of the Staples center if cloutier is claimed.

With Paul, everyone has their opinions...but you put some defenseman in front of him who will deliver some punishment and clear some rebounds it wouldn't be a problem. EVERY goalie gives up rebounds, EVERY goalie gives up softies. Not many goalies face as much rubber every night than Barbs.

You throw Komisarek and Weber on to this defensive corps and strike some fear into the opponents and LaBarbera will shine.

Look at Garon.....biggest complaint was rebound control...he is doing GREAT in Edmonton. It's not the netminders...its the defense.

Feed his ass to the Sharks?
We may yet.
That had better be his next start.

Well, now that we've spent the last few hours bashing each other's opinions, where exactly is there a news story or transaction report about this? I can't find a peep about it on nhl.com, lakings.com, tsn.ca, or thehockeynews.com.

Matt is correct. You are exchanging one bad goalie for another. The hope is that Cloutier gets picked up on waivers(highly unlikely) if not you hope he shows something during the next few weeks to justify someone taking him as a backup or insurance for the stretch run. It's all highly unlikely, but what the hell were we getting out of Aubin? Cloutier can do no worse.

I can't believe anyone would think Barbs isn't playing great. The guys save percentage is terrific. Any coach will tell you it's the goalie's responsibility to make the first save...after that it's the D's responsibility to clear the rebounds. I can't believe what I'm reading. He had 40+ shots last night and we came out with the W. what more do you want from the guy?

Feed his ass to the Sharks?
We may yet.
That had better be his next start.

Its under "Ice Chips" on TSN

Woo hoo ! #1 overall here we come. Hopefully, if Cloutier can regain his older form, maybe we will be in a good position for next year. Or he could be used as partial trade bait.

Oh my god what a freakin' dilemma!!!!!!

The perfect scenario? Dump both and call up a young guy. (Unlikely)

The likely scenario? Yo Mama gets claimed because he's cheaper and Crawfish's gimp gets called up.

Seriously, what does Cloutier have on Crawfish that he seems to keep hanging on? Whatever it is, he's got the same dirt on Lombardi?? What is it with the Kings and giving retarded players chance after chance???

Does anybody really care if Cloutier plays well or not? Cloutier is the boy who cried wolf times a thousand. Whatever he does, nobody cares at this point. He is barely good enough in the AHL and that is already been proven as fact.

That being said, congrats to Cloutier on his new baby.....

So I know this is off-topic but no one seems to have noticed that Alex Ovechkin is on pace to break Lucky's single-season goal-scoring record that has stood now for 15 years!

Robitaille scored 63 goals for the Kings back in the 1992-93 season to break Steve Shutt's old record.

With 46 goals already through 55 games, Ovechkin seems to be only getting hotter as of late, and while he won't break Luc's left wing single-season points record from that same season, he has a good shot of being the first left wing to ever score 70 goals in one season. Unless he gets hurt I don't see any way he won't pass Lucky. And I gotta say no one is more deserving, in my opinion. Knowing what a good guy Luc is, I'm sure he will make some kind of statement honoring Ovechkin's accomplishment when it happens and I hope he will attend when the NHL honors the mark.

Seems to me like this is just a good salary move. as they say on the street, it's a free option to potentiqally unload his salary. We'll probably lose one goalie (although as i type this there's only 9hrs for that) and more people in the minors will get a chance to shine.

that being said, maybe we should bring back Goose Gosselin.

i know i'm not alone when i say this, but i think perhaps the time is right for us to bring back Fukufuji-san back in the nets.

Remember Kwame.
Remember Kwame.

crash davis & brian....
is it me? or does the team play with no confidence infront of cloutier? how on earth could brining him up be an advantage for the team...

#1. nobody is insane enough to pick him up on waivers unfortunately
#2. knowing how crawford loves this guy, he'll probably get 'a chance to prove himself' for a few games, throwing off labarbara and the whole team like he did last season
#3. it still wont give us the number one over all pick because even if we finish the season last in the NHL we have to go through the draft lottery and could still be stuck with the #2 overall pick.

no, in my mind, we shouldve let him stay in manchester another season before releasing him.... I cringe at the sight of #39 in and around our Kings...

Maybe it's DL's way of showing why there should be a buy out to AEG. The Kings are probably just a write off for them anyway.

overreact! be irrational! it's the internets!

in all seriousness, this move depends entirely on how crow wants to treat him. if he wants to pretend that dan is the golden child still then we're probably in a bit of trouble, but if he continues to start labs then there's no issue here. the hope is that someone needs filler somewhere and claims one of them so they have room in manchester/reading for all of their goalies.

if dan is somehow healthy then this could be a positive if he's used right. there's no reason to call up a young kid to back up labarbera, the kid (whether it be taylor or ersberg or whomever) is much better off playing regularly in manchester rather than irregularly in LA.

Didn't you guys learn anything about Sports Economics 101 when Memphis traded Gasol to the Lakers??? Salary dumping, period.

Crash Davis said:

"because of his contract size, it's also a shrewd move to possibly shed half of his contract if another NHL claims him" plus another 1.55mil next season. I predicted this move in the early part of the season when Bernier was send back to juniors. Shrewd move??? Very. If another club picks up Clouts option, the Kings are off the hook for his salary for next season and that salary against the cap. He's not going to see any playing time behind Lababs anyway. Great move DL!

In addition to maybe turning him back into a movable asset if he does have his old form back, how about having a quick look at a healthy cloutier before deciding whether or not to buy out the final year of the deal. and last year he was anything but healthy as the torn labrum the kings forced him to play through is the goaltending equivalent of a wide receiver with a torn ACL (ie. zero lateral movement out of the butterfly). As 2 former Kings have said since, he basically couldn't push to his left all season but was told to just suck it up, that he was making excuses (by time Dr saw it, the hip was bone on bone). Or how about seeing him play after not having the GM force him to abandon his old cage set up for a fibreglass mask, something he has always said he felt blind in? not saying he's a top goalie any more, but he's not as bad as last season. For this team, why not give him a chance to prove it -- and if he does get lit up, they know to buy him out, and increase lottery chances at the same time.

what an OVER-REACTION by some of you! We are not going to make the playoffs, shut up. Let DL do his job ! You have no idea what the short term plans are.

Just sit down and enjoy the rebuild ride !

Hey Matt,

Could you possibly interview Bailey to get his take on this please?

Thank you.

Moondoggie that would be great if he wasn't the 4th statistically in the minors. Every other team has goalies in the minors and most would give them a shot than a has been or never was.

the team is 7-3-1 in the last 11. Good time to shake up the locker room I guess. Crawford will play him some, he always does. It will break up Labarberra's play because he has to play a lot to keep his form.

People who keep blaming goaltenders like Labs for the Kings failures need to take a reality check and look at the other goalies we've shipped off as "failures". Legace, Garon, Huet, etc....Something is wrong with the system, not the goalies. Sure we've had tanks and Cloutier giving up goals regulalrly from no angle last year is a prime example.

Take the salary loss, cut the dude and give the kids in the minors more playing time.

Anthony,

It's worst, not worse.

Everybody freaking out on here and other places is pretty freakin funny. Like someone else mentioned, there has been no official release or notes about the transaction anywhere other than here and TSN. So does the mean it really happened? I can't believe it would fly under the radar like that.

Both cleared waivers, No one wanted them....

We'll see tonight, but I don't believe this story. This was nothing more then a rumor circulated on hockeybuzz.com that tsn.ca picked up on. It's not on any transaction list anywhere, and Aubin is still shown on the Kings roster & Cloutier on the Monarchs.

Regardless, I have a solution to our goalie issues.

I would suspect that the Kings are not thrilled with how Bernier responded when he got sent back to juniors. Yes, he's got decent stats down there, but he's not even the #1 goalie. If he's not good enough to start in the Q, can they really believe he'd be good enough to start in the NHL in 2 or 3 years?

So here's my solution...

Package whomever it takes, even Bernier and trade with the Habs or the Rangers to get Carey Price or Al Montoya.

Both have proven they're ready to be NHL starters, but they're both trapped behind better current NHL goalies.

Both the Rangers & the Canadiens need help to secure their playoff futures this year, so send them Blake, or Nagy, or Handzus with whatever prospects they need to send the goalie out here.

Then we're set in goal for the next 10 years and we have a guy who can come in and start now, not in 2010.

Oz,
You can't understand why a Cloutier call-up isn't making headline news? TSN is a credited source and I have never seen anything on this blog posted by either Rich or Matt that has been pure speculation.

Validity aside, the move fails to make sense to me on any level. So we brought him up to "showcase" him before the deadline? First of all, Aubin was available basically for free on his way down. I find it hard to believe any GM would pass on Aubin and then decide to make a move for Cloutier at the deadline, even if he wins a few starts. Second, this does nothing to solve the logjam of netminders in Manchester as Aubin appears to have cleared and third, what must Labarbera be thinking at this point. The Cloutier experiment was the direct cause of his yr long stint in Manchester last year and just when Babs is proving himself to be this teams best option, Cloutier is back up??

Gonna be very interesting to see how this plays out. I just hope team chemistry/confidence is not affected by this. It was nice to see this team playing for each other, last place or not. I guess if Cloutier avoids getting pulled after a goal that didn't count (i.e. Phoenix last yr) he will have improved...

...rant end.

All this move proves is that the Kings aren't serious on winning ANY games until next year...if the beachball plays just one more game in a Kings uniform...

It flies under the radar because its Cloutier and Aubin.
mrk

Signing Cloutier to an extension was the dumb move
not bringing him up now. The only question is if there is another team stupid enough to claim him
or trade for him at a later date.

Both goalies have cleared waivers and JS Aubin was assigned to manchester.

Garon is a china doll. he will break down during the playoffs or sooner. the one goalie the Kings should have & could have kept was Legace although Huet would have nearly sufficed. I've said this forever.

Labs is doing just fine I just hope Cloutier doesn't breathe his cancer into this locker room and infect the kids.

How can anyone think that Lombardi has done a decent job so far. The goaltending situation has been a joke for his two years, the free agent signings have been disastrous and even taking Hickey with the 4th pick is a big question mark. I am a 35 year fan and 20 year season ticket holder and sincerly hope that things work out in the future and that Hickey turns out ot be worthy of such a high pick and that the whole rebuilding effort pays off. I am glad to read through this, though, and see that so many people feel the same way I do but then you see someone saying that he is "doing a decent job". YOU DON'T HAVE TO FALL TO DEAD LAST IN ORDER TO REBUILD AN ORGANIZATION. These last 2 seasons have been a disgrace and although he would like you to blame Dave Taylor for it, the facts point right back to him. Believe me, no one will claim Cloutier off waivers because they will be too busy laughing about the deal that Lombardi signed him to.

Oz: that's only because the LA Times etc doesn't report on the Kings. sure they'll have a blurb on whatever happened - on Friday not Wednesday. and AP (Yahoo et al) are slow to pick it up because the Kings are a last place team and NHL news is often slower than NFL MLB etc.

I read this blog many times a day . . . it's time to contribute. (Thanks to all of you for giving me an additional reason to avoid doing all the things that have to get done each day!!!)

From TSN (Ice Chips): "Goaltender Dan Cloutier cleared re-entry waivers and J.S. Aubin cleared waivers on Thursday. Cloutier has been injured most of the season in the minors but has played the last few weeks. The Kings want to give Cloutier another chance to show what he's got."

Patience! Patience! Patience! I think we all need to remember that this year is over. Coming in 3rd or 4 th worst in the league ovrerall is not an option. We would loose out on the #1 pick. The lottery can go against us, but I would rather be #1 if possible. By the Kings calling up Cloutier, it's possible they are looking into trading Barbs? If Cloutier is not claimed that might be the next plan. We would definatey take a step back in the standings while giving Clouts another try, and possibly get some more talent in a trade while barbs is hot!! What do you think?

Paul,

Before you cast aside Bernier as a bust because he was upset at being sent down to his junior team remember a couple of things:
1-The kids just a teenager...obviously he wasn't ready to handle the NHL on a daily basis. His maturity level wasn't and probably still isn't there YET.

2-Remember a goalie by the name of Patrick Roy? Read about his reaction when he was sent back to his junior team....He sulked and didn't play well when he was first sent down.
I think he turned out to be ok.
I am not ready to give up on him yet. Not by a long shot. What has Al Montoya done since being drafted in the 1st round? Absolutely nothing! What makes you think he'll be any better than Bernier?

Bob, your comments about Hickey being a gamble are about the same as JJ being a gamble when we got him. Any draft pick, whether its Crosby or Hickey is a gamble. Hickey's an 18 yr old kid who played for the Canadian Junior team. As I've said before, not many 18 year olds, especially defensemen, make that team. Obviously some other people in the hockey world think a lot of him.
I agree that the last 2 years have been a disgrace, but you can see the future is as bright as it's ever been with this organization. Look at every kid that comes up. How can yo not be excited about guys like Boyle,Moulson, Purcell...etc?
Rome wasn't built in a day. Lets give this a chance.

Of course then we have dick-all between the pipes next year if we deal Labs. I doubt we can convince any goalie worth his salt to come here in free agency. I liked Cloutier back in the day, but I think he needs to be taken out back and shot.

So I guess we'll probably see him this weekend eitehr in Columbus or Pittsburgh.

As has been said DL has to do this to try and move him or at least see if he's made any improvement. Kings can still buy him out after this season right?

The Anthony's of the world need to chill. This is a business move and Aubin ain't any better than Clouts so might as well see what he's got. If he starts falling apart early in a game hopefully Crawford will pull him and put Labs in.

My biggest concern now would be managing the perception of the young players so that they know management is serious in assembling a good team and not just saddling the team w/ management's prior bad decisions.

nykings fan:

If you read through my statement, you and I are pretty much in agreement. My comment is not really about Hickey, it is about Lombardi taking a guy who is ranked around 26th with the 4th pick. As you say, it is a crap shoot and I hope Hickey works out and that it was a good move. However, when you look at all of the moves and decisions that Mr. Lombardi has made since he has been at the helm you really have to wonder. I have been fed this line about the future for far too long to completely buy it. I guess that you could say that at best I am cautiously optimistic but I just don't get what he has been up to over the last 2 years with goaltending, free agents, etc. I also think that he is very arrogant which is not something that I admire either. Long term fans of the Los Angeles Kings, who kept the team in this city when it was truly the oasis in the middle of the hockey desert, deserve much better than what they have been getting over the course of the last 10 plus years. It seems like we always get the guy that teams don't want when they get a guy(Fiset from Avs when they get Roy, Roenick from Philly when they get Forsberg, Cloutier from Vancouver when they get Luongo)etc. etc. I just wish that I could feel better about Lombardi's decision making but hopefully you are right.