Do the Kings Look Internally or Externally to Replace Drew Doughty?
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period joined Scott Laughlin and Gord Stellick on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio Morning Skate and was asked what the Los Angeles Kings will do to replace injured defenseman Drew Doughty. He stated there are a couple of options on the table.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
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Scott Laughlin: “Dave Pagnotta with us here on the NHL Morning Skate. And Dave You and DB Dennis Bernstein have always been pretty close to that Los Angeles situation. Can you offer up a good opinion here on how the Kings go forward without Drew Doughty, presumably for a couple of months?
So it sounds like, and I think this is the right way to go about it, at least for the time being, that they’re going to try to backfill internally in trying to replace all the minutes and responsibility he takes on, even into the latter stages of his career. So whether it’s Jordan Spence or Brandt Clarke. What do you think about the Kings, at least, being able to tread water until they get their number one defenseman back.”
Dave Pagnotta: “Yeah. And the biggest thing for them is the fact that, I guess, Drew’s not going to be out for the full season. The anticipation that he’s going to be back in two or three months. And that gives certain opportunity for some guys to step up.
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And you know when the mindset, the planning stages were in place, they brought in Joel Edmondson. They wanted him to be the anchor on a pair with Brandt Clarke, allow Clarke to do his thing offensively. And at least, you’ve got a guy who’s big, physical and can hold his own, he can hold his own in the zone, there’s going to be an opportunity for grant Clarke, and as you said, Jordan Spence and they initially started Kyle Burroughs next to Mikey Anderson on the top there to see if they can, at least, kind of hold the fort.
You’re not going to replace a Drew Doughty. No team is not going to be able to do that. But you can do enough over the two-three months he is going to be out to sustain a solid enough pace of play, but you can still be part of the playoff picture. And then, once Drew comes back and allow yourself to propel from there.
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It’s a different type of situation versus losing one of their top-tier guys. You know, it’s a trickier situation. This team has a decent amount of depth up front, but on the back end, how will they replicate any type of pace of play that Drew Doughty can bring?
Well, you can’t. So, can you modify your game a little bit, and can some of their guys step up in order to provide not only a two-way style, but also kind of focus on the offense, and, you know, looking at some of the offense that they lost and taking into account what Drew can do if you can kind of replicate some of that offense in the first third of the season, they should be in good shape in terms of playoff contention, but a lot of it is going to depend on some of their younger guys.
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Like you said Brandt Clarke and Jordan Spence. At the same time, how is Darcy Kuemper going to perform? Is he going to be able to step up? You’re going to need a few guys on the Kings team to step up without Doughty the lineup. They feel they’ve got enough depth to do it, and they’ve got a tiny bit of cap space.
What they realize that, you know, the first month that they’re not able to do something, they can explore and try to bring in somebody in that, 1.5 to $2 million range. That’s realistically the type of cap space that they have at the same time, guys, we’ve also been kind of exploring the fourth line center position.
They were kind of looking to see if they can fill that void internally. It looks like they’re going to eventually look outside the club to try to address that need later on in the season.”