Lombardi, on his future
Finally, a reporter asked Lombardi a rather pointless question about whether he was concerned about his job status...
``When I took this job, I looked at two things. There were no young defensemen and no young goalies. I interviewed with five teams. I said, `If you want to be a contender and you want to do this right, you've got a massive rebuilding.' (In baseball) you're not going to win without good pitching and defense. You saw it with the Celtics, good defense. Defense wins championships. If you're not solid on the back end, you're not going to be a contender. It goes back to Jack Johnson and then why we had to be aggressive at the draft. It's why maybe you you take a little chance on Hickey. It's all about getting the back end fixed. If you're going to take this job and make decisions based on the pressure, you're going to be spinning your wheels. People in hockey know what you're doing. When you're in the building mode and trying to do it the right way, it's just an occupational hazard.''
That's all from Dean Lombardi today. I will post the quotes from Jarret Stoll and Matt Greene next...
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Rich Hammond has covered the Kings, on a full-time or part-time basis, since the 2000-01 season. He was the beat writer for the entire John Torchetti era and has witnessed Bob Miller singing country music in a Nashville honky-tonk bar. A native of Los Angeles, Rich has worked at the Daily News since 1999 and also serves as the paper's deputy sports editor. E-mail Rich at rich.hammond@dailynews.com.
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 jill.painter@dailynews.com.
WOW, I guess 22 is too old.
That's how old Tim Gleason was when DL arrived.
Amazing.
wanna answer the question DL?
anthony,
seriously dude, you are reaching on this one. Everyone, including DL, knew what we were giving up to get Johnson. You make that trade any day. I am impressed though, you didnt link the Kessler OT goal.
Anthony,
I am sure Carolina would gladly trade Gleason back to us in exchange for Jack Johnson. Do you want to do that deal?
Anthony--are you saying you'd prefer Tim Gleason to Jack Johnson?
Imagine how long this rebuild would be if he didn't inherit Kopitar, Frolov, Brown, and I guess you can include Cammalleri and Visnovsky as well.
He signs scrubs like Handzus, Calder, Nagy, Preissing, Cloutier and Crawford again and he WILL be gone! Those guys arent bridges those guys are those grates that cover the sewers.
@ Mr. L
"grates that cover the sewers"
thats actually exactly what we needed lol. cuz there were so many other FA's out there who wanted to sign here and would've made an immediate impact. come on guys get real.
And that first comment...WTF?
Dominic Lavoie - voice of reason - ranole,
I'm not saying it was a bad trade.
I would rather have JJ anyday.
I'm just saying that DL made a statement that was factually incorrect.
That's all.
I think it's actually fair enough to point out that Lombardi traded Gleason, who was in fact young at the time. But I'm pretty sure what DL meant was, "I have never traded gold-chip prospects away to get some old fading star." And I think it's pretty clear that he speaks the truth on this point.
Meanwhile, this issue caused me to peruse the delightful list of all Kings all-time trades, on the Kings website.
http://kings.nhl.com//team/history/trades.htm
Check it out. It's a trip down memory lane. My favorites:
Sandstrom and Granato for Nichols. (great trade for the Kings, in my opinion, though I loved BN)
Mike Donnelly to the Kings for Mikko Makela (possibly the best trade ever, but to believe that you'd have to remember Mikko Makela)
Ray Ferraro, Nathan LaFayette, Ian Laperriere, Mattias Norstrom and a fourth-round choice in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft (Sean Blanchard) from the New York Rangers for Shane Churla, Jari Kurri and Marty McSorley. This was one of the most productive trades ever for the Kings, I think.
Feb. 15, 2001 – Acquired Felix Potvin from Vancouver for future considerations.
Feb. 21, 2001 – Acquired Adam Deadmarsh, Aaron Miller, a player to be named later (Jared Aulin), a first-round choice in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft (David Steckel) and a first-round choice in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft (Brian Boyle) from Colorado for Rob Blake and Steven Reinprecht.
March 13, 2001 – Acquired Adam Mair and a second-round choice in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft (Michael Cammalleri) from Toronto for Aki Berg.
June 24, 2006 – Acquired Patrick O’Sullivan and a first-round choice in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft (Trevor Lewis) from Minnesota for Pavol Demitra.
Feb. 26, 2007 – Acquired a second-round choice in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft (Wayne Simmonds) and a fourth-round choice in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft (later traded to Buffalo on June 21, 2008) from Vancouver for Brent Sopel.
Feb. 27, 2007 – Acquired the rights to Johan Fransson, Jaroslav Modry, a second-round choice in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft (Oscar Moller), a third-round choice in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft (Bryan Cameron) and a first-round choice in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft (later traded to Anaheim on June 20, 2008) from Dallas for Mattias Norstrom, Konstantin Pushkarev, a third-round choice in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft and a fourth-round choice in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft.
Feb. 19, 2008 – Acquired a third-round choice (Geordie Wudrick) in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft from Philadelphia for Jaroslav Modry. Which makes the Nordstrom trade essentially Wudrick and Moller for Nordstrom, which is great if you ask me.
Anyway, the link is cool.
I listened to replay on Kings.com. Stupid question by an uniformed radio hack. POINTLESS!