Jon Hover of Mayor’s Manor and Kings of the Podcast joined TFP Hotstove on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Dennis Bernstein, Dave Pagnotta, and Ryan Paton on Saturday. Hoven was asked about the type of player the Los Angeles Kings are looking for on defence, given that he didn’t think Darnell Nurse is a fit, and what else they can do with the blueline.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Dave Pagnotta: “SO you mentioned the D. We talked about center, we talked about other positions, but you mentioned the D a few times outside of (Darnell) Nurse. What do you think they need to do, and what type of guys do they need to bring in? Not necessarily that specific player, but a type of player that you feel would benefit this club on this blue line.”
Jon Hoven: “Yeah, (Peter) Laviolette tried talking about this a little bit. They were sort of hedging around the edges, about you need to be able to get offense from your defenseman, and that doesn’t always necessarily come in the form of goals and assists, and showing up on the score sheet. But you need guys that can move the puck and at least be part of the offensive attack.
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You’ve seen a better offensive or more offensive approach from guys like Joel Edmundson throughout his career, but when guys come to Los Angeles, and they’re asked to play defensive first. We used to joke that Darryl Sutter would scare goals out of people, and that sort of mindset has continued. So, what they need to do is they need to be able to move the puck, and of course, all of the other things that we mentioned earlier, block shots, be physical.
We know that the LA Kings, like most teams in the National Hockey League, love big players. So if you were to sort of sketch out the perfect player for them, he’s, you know, 6’3″ or 6’4″ that sort of thing. What they do goes back to the Drew Doughty conversation.
They’re not going to be able to swap out four of their defensemen, right? It’s probably two of their six starting defensemen, so you kind of go through the list, and you go, “Okay, well, Mikey Anderson is not going anywhere, Brandt Clarke’s s not going anywhere.
There’s two, so you’re left with the four others. I would say Cody Ceci, although the fans were all over Cody Ceci throughout last year, and Holland was panned big time for the contract that he signed last summer. I just don’t see Cody Ceci as being a tradable asset this particular summer.
I think if you’re Holland, his most likely move is to give him one more year, at least half a year, to try to sort of redeem himself, and then you address it next to next summer with a buyout or with a trade or whatever you have to do.
So there’s another guy off the board. Which really leaves you back to the Drew Doughty conversation, and then also you have Brian Dumoulin, and you have Joel Edmundson. Again, Edmundson and Dumoulin are probably the two most tradable contracts that they have. So that there’s some help there as well, except for Doughty.
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And if Doughty moves, then there’s a whole other layer to what we’re talking about, Dave, because when you say what type of player do they need now. It’s not just somebody that can move the puck, now it’s somebody that can show up on the score sheet, because Brandt Clarke would be the really only offensive-minded defenseman. So they’re going to need somebody who’s going to be able to help run a second unit of power play, and those sorts of things.
So, again, it all circles back to Drew Doughty, but I’m going to throw a name at you. Don’t be surprised if you’re surprised if you see (Vladislav) Gavrikov back in Los Angeles this summer.
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