In This Corner

How would you assess the team's progress, in your second year?

Lombardi: "I think we didn't think we'd be this far out right now, as far as what we expected. I felt we were probably around .500 this time of year and then hopefully some of the young players would continue to get better and you'd have a little upside on your team and, you know, challenge for a spot; .500 wouldn't get you in right now but it would certainly put you in the fight.

"We're pretty much on that pace. You try to look at your team and see where you are as far as where you are on the ice. You know, we got back from Europe, we had that 1-4 start which put us in a hole. After that, that stretch there we were 10-10-2 and that's where I thought we were, 'OK, let's stabilize, you know, it's probably where we're at.' And then we hit that stretch where we went (whistles) right into the tank there for eight games, and that combined with the start kind of put us in no-man's-land.

"So that part, the positives I guess to that, and overall in the building, is (Dustin) Brown ... most of the young players, the key ones, Brown certainly has taken his game to another level. (Anze) Kopitar hasn't had the falloff a lot of guys ... young players when they have success like Kopie did last year it's not unusual for them to come back the next year with, what do you call it, the sophomore slump or big head, whatever, But that hasn't been the case at all. In some cases, for his age, he probably has too much on his plate but he's handled it extremely well. (Jack) Johnson is on a pace, I think he's on the right path. He hasn't done the offense; we haven't asked him to. That will come eventually with more experience.

"(Patrick) O'Sullivan is probably our most improved player. He's still got a ways to go. but anybody who's watched him last year and seen him this year, he's clearly become better. Then (Michael) Cammalleri and (Alexander) Frolov, they're not exactly young anymore but they're kind of considered within that. When Cammalleri was leading the league in goal-scoring and then he found out, like I told him, that once you're up there people are going to start knowing who you are and play you different, and that's a little surprising. I think he faced that for the first time and then had a little lull there. That's all part of the growth process, that now he's expected to score, and then he got hurt.

"So from that perspective that's the fairly positive. Unfortunately, one of the things in coming here and I've said this time and again, when we started here, we're not a young team. You talk about an oganization, I always say there's five ingredients -- the NHL team, the minor-league team, the pro scouting, the amateur scouting, development. There'e five sectors. When I came in here, I've got my own belief in how things should be done. In terms of the other sectors, I think we've made a lot of progress in the amateur scouting and development but we still have a lot of work to do. i just got back from two weeks in Europe and it's a combination of watching our own young players as well as making sure the staff's doing the right thing, that i want things done a certain way, things going on behind the scenes that I am happy with, but we have to get better. But as far as the big club up here right now ...

"That's kind of what's different. When I built it in San Jose, there was still kind of an expansion team so you could put your team in place and stick with it. The fans would still get frustrated but they were with a team that hadn't been around a long time and people still understood there was a growth process.

"This is entirely different. It's one of the challenges I knew I was going to face in coming here. You've got a 40-year history of no Cup. You've got, in the last 15 years, four playoff appearance, which is lowest in the league. You've got one playoff round won in the last 15 years, which is the lowest in the league. And you've got a fan base, which I noticed as a pro scout, is very passionate. And what can you say to them? They've paid their dues. It's unfortunate because you've got teams like Dallas and Denver that have won Stanley Cups. In Denver, the pain of growing came in Quebec. In Dallas, the pain came in Minnesota. Those were two cities that got hockey clubs that already had done the hard work someplace else.

"I also believe there's a certain way of doing things, and this is kind of where I learned it, when I first took over, i learned a lot from a guy like Lou Lamoriello. There is a certain way to do things, whether you're a trainer, or a scout or a secretary, you do things right. And there are certain ways it has to be done. I've always followed that, and I have my own belief in how scouting should be done, the way technology should be used, the way your staff should be disseminated about the country, how you run your meetings, the way you challenge your people. So I guess you could say everybody can say the same ... regardless of developing young players, the draft, you have to build it yourself, and that's a hard thing to do. But it still is the crux of the matter

"Now, why is that? I've got my own theories on that. It can be a crap shoot but you've got to lessen your odds. You're going to make mistakes, but you're not going to make mistakes from a lack of effort or lack of thinking. This is the first year ... You say second year, but this is the first year I've got my staff with the people I want. I completely rebuilt the amateur staff, the way we use technology, the pro staff, and this takes time and again, great organizations are the ones that have been together a long time and they do things a certain way. The same with Philadelphia, where I was worked for Bobby Clarke those three years. You learn a lot. Those principles hold. There's a reason why those franchises have had great success.

"The other thing too, as a practical matter, I just don't believe there's another way. Building a team, we're at the stage where we have to build a reserve list. A reserve list is your cards. A reserve list gives you the cards to play to make deals and that's what the fans want to see. All they think a general manager does is make trades or sign free agents. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

"As a practical matter ... we were active this summer in the free agency and everyone was all excited, but this to me, when you're this active, you've got holes. Free agency should be used once your core is together and you add a player to your core, who fits in the core you've built, or you're getting that role player that fills a critical role that you just haven't been able to get to in the draft or via trade. That's one sign you've got a lot of holes in your reserve list. You've got to go get six free agents to fill some holes. I remember in the summer people saying this is great, but it's not a good sign."

Assess the performances of your free agents.

"(Brad) Stuart's been pretty good. When you get guys where you expect them to be, you get what you expected ... Stuart I think has met expectations. (Michal) Handzus has not. He'd be the first to tell you he's not played up to his capability. The one thing about Zus, we do know his character. His problem is, like, the the worst thing you can get is a guy who gets a contract and doesn't care or thinks he's all set. Zus can go the other way. He actually is harder on himself and beats himself up. I know he cares. He'd be the first to tell you that he hasn't done what he's capable of. Part of it is he got off to a slow start, the knee injury, and he got himself in a rut, and he starts coming out of it and then ... so he hasn't been up to his expectations.

"(Ladislav) Nagy has started to execute, he's been pretty much what we expected, after a slow start. He's been pretty good the last month. Same probably with (Tom) Preissing. He's probably playing to expectations. Kyle (Calder) was playing pretty well until injuries, but now he's just been OK. But that's what they are. The other thing, too, we weren't getting a (Scott) Gomez or an impact guy. It was the kind of thing, I don't think it's the time right now. I'd like to get that impact guy when you've got your core together. So of the five guys, a couple have met expectations, Zus has been below, the others have been behind expectations.

Are you committed to leaving goaltender Jonathan Bernier in juniors this year? He's not coming back to Los Angeles?

"He can't, under the rules. Once he goes back to juniors, he can't play. That's why you get that whole circus there at the 10-game mark because once you make the decision, it's final. It probably wouldn't have been such an issue in October to get back, but it;'s a crazy quirk in the rules. Once he's sent back, you can't get him back.

"And I'm totally fine with that. This is another thing you do when you talk about a plan. You can't just put kids on the rink to show fans you're getting younger. This is one thing we did at San Jose which is very hard to do, but we got better six years in a row, and we got younger every year. We did it when the kids were ready. If you do it the other way ... you just put kids out there and they're not ready, you tell fans you're young and everything, but they're not ready, they're not going to succeed and you have to end up trading them.

"So Bernier's case, it's also an issue of 'Is Bernier really ready or is he the best of a not-very-good lot?' And that's not good for the kid.

"The other thing that's interesting in this organization, in 40 years it hasn't developed its own goalie. Even Rogie (Vachon) wasn't their own goalie. They got him from Montreal. So this is the most critical position on the rink, we still haven't developed our own goalie. So I'm looking at this and, 'Hey, i better not mess this up.' There's still no guarantee he's going to make it. He has a lot of potential, but potential not used properly in the long run is not going to reach it. So he should have gone back. The world junior championships were a good experience for him."

In your second season here, what sort of progression did you hope for?

"One of the things you can look at for progression ... there's selling the coaches, getting them stabilized, get that foundation in place. We have to establish, we're still in the process of establishing, what we want to be, how we want to play. A lot of teams go through this anyway with the new rules and that's still being defined. But, uh, i don't know how to describe this but, it's like putting together a puzzle but not all the pieces are ready when you'd like them to be ready.

"When your team is younger, they have to learn how to win. that's a delicate thing to do, what we did in San Jose, and to get that in place. And also when you've done that much losing in 15 years, you have to be real careful, because what you have here, when you lose that often, it's a culture. There's a reason Detroit can keep up. ... There's a reason those organizations win -- it's the whole package. We have to at some point put this in place and I think it's only going to come ... it's going to have to start at the grass-roots level and Kopitar and Johnson and Brown and these kids coming through.

"It's really hard to put definitive time lines on it. Some things go forward but some don't ...

"Another thing people don't understand with the Kings, my second year, I had to change my scouting staff halfway through last year. We will be ready this year. When we have my meetings next week we will be where we were at the end of last year. Last year (in the draft) was really tough. We had to go half a year with those guys and ask them for two players out of the draft and we'll hold the fort. But the next one, we have to start hitting.

"I'm starting to feel good about what I'm seeing in the off-ice people, the 40 guys in the trenches who win the end are going to be critical."

Do you feel criticism from the outside?

"I was the youngest general manager in the league, and I was exposed to some really bright guys ... and you learn that if you start to respond to that, you're going to fail. One guy said to me, 'Look, vision is being able to see what other people can't. And so if you have a plan, it requires vision, you're going to get fried if you have that plan, and if it bothers you, don't take the job. ... That's an occupational hazard. If it's going to effect you ... don't take the job. Be prepared to get fired at some point.

"It wasn't easy the first time I did it in San Jose. So now there is that direct experience of knowing it does work, so it does help a little to stay focused. And like I said to the staff, 'You're responsible for seeing those 40 people, the scouts and front-office people. ... They need to see you standing strong, and it's a battle every day. ..."

Are you suggesting this franchise has never done things right, top to bottom? Never developed the organization thoroughly, to last?

"I've just got my own way. Is it better or worse? It's different. By doing that you're criticizing someone else.

"I was a little surprised at the (Kings performances over the last) 15 years. That's been ... That was right after Wayne's year. I'm a big fan of that, coming from New England, and the Flyers and Roenick and all that, and working for Philly for my childhood idol (Clarke), and you just walk around Philadelphia ... the main thing, there's something there, you can't define it. So obviously there, a huge track record of success there, and they lit the fire and pass on the torch.

"When I was looking at the teams that I was interested in going to, and interviewing (with the Kings), it was a negative early because I like those traditional things, but Wayne Gretzky told me, if you win there, there's nothing better in the world ... so there's positives and negatives. Wayne tried to do it as a player, and you know what, in the big picture too, I think the league needs L.A. Let's face it, the NBA was built on the Celtics-Lakers, and if you can ever get a L.A.-Gretzky show ... hockey as a whole was big ...

"It's a huge challenge. So let's establish history instead of following history."

What do you tell fans? That they need to be patient-- still?

"I get to talk to them in February, at my GM town meeting. We haven't set the date yet. ... It's funny, I get e-mails, and they say this and this and this, and I say, 'This is where we're at.' A lot of times you throw the options out to them and it hits them ...

"For some people, the 30 years of frustration, maybe I deserve to let them get up and vent. That's the least we can give them at this point."