That is borderline retarded. I believe Anshutz is the best owner the Kings have ever had. Lombardi has been given full reign over the team and their finances. They are rich as hell and are still turning profit on the Kings and the Staples Center.

Sure, any idiot can jump on that bandwagon (not calling the author an idiot), but let's be honest, the only impact ownership has is in hiring the right people (check) taking their own hands off the decision making (check) and being willing to spend money when the time comes. If Shutzy (we're close like that) wanted to sell he would have done that 2 years ago. At this point the team is going to get continually better, eventually contend, and then we'll see if he approves the spending when it's time.

We all loved Bruce McNall, it was great fun, but I wouldn't take him back. He left the appetites big and the cabinets bare.

Have to agree with Mavrick, except add Taylor, Lieweke and company. Anshutz has given each management regime free reign in regards to salaries as far as I know.

Blaming the owners is a stretch imo. I blame poor FA signings, poor drafting, poor decisions and poor planning as reasons for the 13+ years of futility that the author talks about.

Completely disagree with the columnist, and completely agree with both "Maverick" and "Good Squad."

AEG spends the money. Lieweke knows sports, and knew when to shift his role. Look at how successful the Minnesota Wild are. Does anyone remember who put the Wild in that building?

So if I understand the article correctly, Dilbeck thinks Anschutz should sell because he is a billionnaire, lives in Colorado and doesn't give interviews. Ooookay.

AEG has given us the Staples Center and the Toyota Training Center, bought the AHL Monarchs and built them a first class arena and is now building an arena for the new ECHL Ontario Reign. Lombardi has assembled a large staff and claims he can spend to the cap. So the fact that our owner is loaded seems to be a good thing.

AEG bought this club out of bankruptcy with its cupboards bare. There were no prospects and no development system. The Kings made the playoffs in their third year of ownership.

Things looked promising in 2001. I think some mistakes were made after that and Leiweke's philosophy of fiscal responsibility probably hurt us.
Then injures took their toll. Then the lockout. I think these things tended to obscure the fact that Dave Taylor's management had lost focus and direction.

Then AEG brought in Lombardi, which was a good move. It is letting DL do his job. You can't judge a rebuild in two years.

Anschutz has no hockey acumen that I'm aware of, so his lack of involvement is probably a good thing. We're told DL has full control. Another good thing.

Whether Anschutz should sell now should be decided based on how he is performing now as the owner. It seems to me that, right now, he is performing quite well.

Despite the Kings owning the worst point total in the NHL, fans continue to flock to Staples. Continue to show up at the rate of more than 16,000 per game.

I had to laugh. Fans haven't "flocked" a whole lot this year, and you can subtract close to 3,000 from ANY number announced at Staples when you look at the close to empty PR sections during most games, because PAID attendance includes corporate seats that breathe "no show."

Why now? After Anschutz made the best move he's ever made acquiring Lombardi as GM.

If Lombardi doesn't work out and it is 2011 and still no playoffs, then maybe.

But that column was stupid. Kings fans DESERVE better columns, too.

Guys that make that much scratch need write-offs, so welcome your LA Write-offs.

It could be a lot worse, like Georgia F. of the Rams worse. Or Al Davis worse.

Be careful what you wish for. Any new owner would likely relocate the team.

Our owner's a pile...

Bruce McNall got us to the Cup...just saying.

I tend to agree with Maverick also. The Kings futility in the Anschutz era seems to fall on the shoulders of Leiweke and Taylor. Leiweke was really the distracted executive here, as is readily apparent by his hiring of Taylor, a man completely incapable of making an executive decision or formulate a viable management plan.

Yeah, just imagine the Steinbrenners running the Kings

Ownership has 2 primary responsibilities - provide the assets necessary to accomplish the objective and then to hold those assigned the objective accountable for the results.

Anschutz/AEG has provided the assets, but it took them 9 years before they held Taylor accountable for the results on the ice because they were putting butts in the seats - AEG's true objective.

The fans of this franchise deserve an ownership group that cares as much about the product on the ice as they do about the paid attendance.

...and trust me, nothing will put butts in the seats around here faster than success.

When AEG bought the kings, the organization had nothing. No prospects, no farm team, depleted scouting which led to poor drafting.

They built Staples, Toyota Center and bought AHL & ECHL franchises so the can properly develop their prospects. They also hired more scouts. And, most importantly, they were not trading 1st round 1 picks. It took a few years for this to finally come together and 2000 is when we started seeing some decent draft choices.

We all heard Lieweke say these things at the State of the Franchise meetings. There were always an excuse. But there comes a time when the organization has to show results. And the fans had enough. My favorite quote from Tl was in '03. "Judge us by what we do in the offseason. We have 3 first round picks and we make significant moves to improve this team." Their moves were reacquire Stumpel and adding Cechmanic. What a joke. They used all 3 draft picks to get Brown, Tambellini and Boyle. So far, Brown is the only impact player for the kings.

The bottom line is TL did not want to compete for a Stanley Cup until there was a cap in place. He cried about how teams such as NYR, Detriot, TO, Colorado, Philly were ruining the league because they were trying to buy the Cup. For the most part he was right. Now that the cap is in place, the kings are still one of the worst teams in the league.

Poor decisions after the '01 season has led to the kings being where they are at this moment. Letting Boucher walk to Dallas, letting Luc walk to Detriot, Heinze, R. Robitaille, Yuskevich, Roenick, Rasmussen, McAlpine, Ronning, Cechmanic. The list goes on and on. The only good thing was adding Allison & Gleason.

TL is the one to blame not PA. The best thing TL ever did was fire himself and let the "hockey" people run the organization.

Lombardi is doing an excellent job and he will lead this team to the Cup. Let's hope he's stays away from UFA's this year.

CRH

Gotta disagree with you guys. There is no real organizational commitment to win from corporate owned teams like the Kings. Teams owned by passionate and committed individual owners outperform coporate owned teams again and again. Just look at the mess that is the Maple Leafs vs.the excitement and enthusiasm that Oilers fans have now that Katz has become the sole owner. And it may be a bitter pill to swallow but I would take Henry Samueli as an owner of the Kings over Uncle Phil any day...

Although I'm a bit jealous of the intimate relationship the ducks have with their owner, all I have to do is remember our prior owners and their criminal / financial problems and I quickly appreciate what we have with AEG. Sure it would be nice to put a face to the owner but I'd rather have financial security over personality.

Can we just blame the fact that no real star wants to come to LA and that the only thing we can do is give out retarded contracts or continue Lombardi's plans and create a better farm system and draft and groom our own players?

As I've said numerous times we have the best owners in the legue and the proof is in the putting. We have the Manchester Monarchs who have to fly back and forth from England to play games yet they are still in the hunt. We have our affiliation with the Washington Generals producing fine young talent and a good holding station for our draftees. We have Bernier about to take over in nets. We have a great arena with a meeting place for LGK'ers at Team LGK. WE are rebuliding people and that takes time. The cup will be ours and the owners are spot on.

Anschutz is NOT the problem with this organization. Poor management, that has since been changed with astute, crafty leaders such as Dean Lombardi, is the reason the Kings are where they are at now.

And in a few years, the Kings will be one of the best teams in the NHL, not for 3-5 years, but for decades. What more can you ask for? AEG gave 100% control to a hockey addict that knows how to build teams. San Jose was wrong to let him go and now we will reep the benefits.

Can't add much that hasn't already been said by the readers above.

Was Dilbeck completely asleep at the wheel when the reigns were handed to Lombardi at the request of the local media & fans, making Leiweke take a back seat & concentrate on the other endeavors AEG is involved in? We wanted Leiweke out of the picture & now Dilbeck is painting him as the bad guy since he's not in the picture.

The Kings don't spend enough to compete.

And don't buy for a second that Lombardi has free reign over the Kings finances, that is completely untrue. The owner sets the limit on the payroll.

The Kings are outspent every year by Dallas and Anaheim. How can a team expect to make the playoffs if it's rivals outspend them by 15% every year?

Despite the Kings owning the worst point total in the NHL, fans continue to flock to Staples. Continue to show up at the rate of more than 16,000 per game.

Let's be honest here. There's a lot less "flocking" than this writer claims. In general this season there have been well over 2,000 empty PR seats for each Kings home game, as the PAID attendance is far different than the amount of butts actually in the seats!

I guess it comes down to if you want stability in the owners (AEG) or a change for change sakes that may or may not put a winning team on the ice. The staff at Staples is great. A new owner may change the tone. The Kings sell 16K tickets a night! That's is a lot for LA, there is a lot of competition for entertainment in LA, much more than in the OC. It's great the Ducks can sell out but what else is there in the winter, Disneyland every week.
Would I like to a new owner that would put a team on the ice that won, yes! Would I like to see a new owner that made my experience at Staples not fun, and put a team that maybe better on the ice, no.
My little company spends about $20k a year on season tickets, parking, food and kings crap for our customers. I go to see hockey and I wish it was winning hockey! No guarantee we would with a new owner. AEG = first class.

What would changing ownership do at this point? All it would do is upset what Lombardi's already started, and instead of Lombardi's 5 year plan, it would be something else; the past two seasons would be wasted.

And if you say new ownership wouldn't change Lombardi's plans, then there's no risk in letting AEG keep the team. The only risk in this situation is losing the blank check Uncle Phil continues to sign.

And 236 - Kings are pretty close to the cap this year, and were fairly close last year. The thing most people seem to miss is how EVERYTHING changed once Lombardi stepped in. AEG may have imposed some limits before, but Lombardi isn't feeling those same things.

And then there's also the issue of cap management - why blindly spend money on 30+ UFA's when the Kings will have a huge crop of young RFA's to sign. We'd be hard-pressed to keep Brown, Kopitar, Johnson, and O'Sullivan if the Kings had Drury and Gomez's bloated contracts on the books.

Kings fans shouldn't have the ultimate faith in Lombardi. Our better players now are players Dave Taylor drafted and plenty of other Western conference teams have as many or more good "prospects" than the Kings. Simply until this team finds a number 1 NHL caliber goaltender nothing will change.

don't forget, they also hired Luc Robitaille, a well known reputable hockey face, as president of sports business operations.

because AEG knows it doesn't have much to pull strings within the hockey world, they were smart enough to grab onto Lucky Luc and have him be the face of the kings while negotiating business ops.

CRH you are completely right. I feel the ownership really knifed the fans in the heart when they were too cheap to re-up Boucher and Schneider. We were so close and then they let those guys walk instead of loading up for a serious run. I lost a lot of faith in this organ-eye-zation. I think they really handcuffed DT. To this day I hate "Lie-Weekly" et. al.
AEG, Inc=FAG,Inc.

I totally agree with this article. AEG has done nothing to improve the kings. All he does and wants is to get richer and have more property. The kings are not even on his list of priorities. He needs to sell to someone who wants to win a cup.

bk8
You nailed it right on the head dude. Two years after
DL took over and this team will probably finish with less points than last year.
Time will tell but I have some real questions about the direction of this team.
What kind of FA's are going to sign here after this year? With the tough remaining schedule that is left Kings will be lucky to finish with more points than last year.Kings could
easily be in this position
same time next year.

Before the cap I would have totally agreed with this article, but quite frankly Anchutz has zero to do with this franchise, now yes maybe it would be nice to have an owner that loved our team and showed up at the games, a la McNall but it would mean nothing. But this is a plan that DL has issued and firing an owner would only upset this plan. Franchises are now more on an even playing field. Dave Talyor was good but he lacked the long term plan that we have in place now. We were always a bottom feeder, competitive but never were going to threaten for the cup. Taylor left this franchise weak from the back end, without a goaltender and no young D-men. DL is trying to change this, does it happen ovennight, no. People who question whether we are able to attract FA's this July 1st is probably right but we are not in any postion at this point of the rebuild to be paying loads for FA's, now if you can steal one by a trade then that is different. Chicago is a good axample as to how I see my Kings next season, you don't think Chic can attract FA's now with their young talent??

16000 fans "flocking" to see a horrible hockey tean isn't loyalty...it's stupidity. Anschutz will never sell this team because no matter how terrible the product on the ice is, thousands and thousands of dolts will STILL pay to see it. All he has to do is have "All you can eat" night or LA Times nachofest and the dumbest fans on earth will still come in droves.

You morons that still line AEG's pockets by paying to see some of the worst Kings hockey ever (and that's saying A LOT) deserve a last place team.

Say all you want about loyalty and being "diehard bleeding purple Kings fans". When I was a kid my Dad used to kick and abuse the family dog and you know what? The dog stayed loyal too because he had a simple mind and didn't know any better.

Dog's name was "Bernie".

" We have a great arena with a meeting place for LGK'ers at Team LGK."

Where is that place so I never have the experience of stumbling into it?

Some very good points Kevin
and food for thought.I agree with you to a point.
To KINGKONGKORAB I would say that the difference between Hawks and Kings is that Hawks have quite a few more prospects on defense than Kings. That could change in the draft.
Chicago has still had problems attracting big names to a certain extent.
Brad Richards refused to go
there and Hawks offered Tampa more than Stars. Some
FA's want to go to an
immediate Cup contender and a young team is not all that attractive. I think DL has used NTC to
attract some vets who may not have signed here without them.

Very interesting and some good points...but I don't see how practical it is to blame the team's mediocraty on the owner...

Kevin's missing a screw.

Gee Brian, what a well thought out response. I never blamed ownership for the Kings' problems. The question is "should Anshcutz sell?" I stated my reasons why he wouldn't ever want to.

Brian's missing a brain.