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- Expectations for LA this year for you?
One of the top teams coming outta the West.
- I think another step forward.
- They have a very strong chance if they stay healthy
to win that Pacific Division.
- Emily, I like this team.
I do, I liked them last year.
You look at the Kings
and I see a team that has the potential
to drive it a little further.
- I see the Kings is one of those teams on the rise.
I think they take a big step forward.
- [Reporter] I view them as a top three Cup favorite.
- Great expectation means you've done something good.
(tense classical music)
If we believe into the cause, and to what the goal is,
which the goal is to get at the end
and get in the playoffs and be ready
and get going as a team,
I really believe this team is in the right direction.
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(tense classical music continuing)
(ocean waves crashing)
(general crowd chatter)
- Just to get started,
we'll take a look at kind of what our summer plan was
and how we come up with it.
So typically when the season ends,
we have a review, not unlike all your departments,
it involves our hockey operations
sitting with the coaching staff, going over every player,
the performance, our expectations,
how they measured against it, but also the team in general.
Then we come up with ideas or a plan for the summer.
- It's a busy time, it's a fun time.
It's a lot of conversations.
You're on the phone basically all day, every day,
whether it's with agents you're negotiating with
or with other teams trying to figure out what the market is
for different players,
who's gonna be available in the summer, who might not be,
what's gonna happen at the draft.
- The way we looked at it is we sat down with everyone
and listened to the coaching staff
and then scouts and everybody
and we've taken a couple steps
and we're always looking to get better.
- We also understood we had to create roster spots
for some young players.
Now these young players have either spent time
in the American League, some games with the NHL,
but we have a real good understanding
that they could fit into the NHL right away.
When you get to the middle of May and into June,
the NHL defines what the salary cap increase will be.
And so we know a real good number there.
So we had a real good understanding,
we don't have a lot of space,
we were actually over the cap, we had to make some moves,
but the coaching staff was adamant that Gavrikov fit
what we were looking for on left D.
- The Flyers with a big move this afternoon.
- [Reporter] The Flyers have traded the defenseman
to Columbus in a multi-team deal also involving Los Angeles.
- And how about the LA Kings, right?
We saw them do business with the Columbus Blue Jackets
earlier this year in the Gavrikov deal.
They now sign him to an extension.
They obviously liked what they saw.
- [Zach] The Kings moved out a lot of money in that deal
and they used that money to retain a player
that Kings fans have been very familiar with
and that's Vladislav Gavrikov.
- Everyone here on our management team,
we've been calling around to other teams,
seeing what their appetite is
to take different contracts of ours.
So Philadelphia was one of those teams
that Blakey had reached out to already, planted the seed.
And then as this other deal came about with Provorov
in Columbus, there was just a really great way
to fix us in there and have a win-win-win
for three different teams,
I thought it was a really creative deal.
- After giving up a first round pick,
having a few years and it'll give chance to some young kids
to come in and take that spot
or hopefully if things go good and he really likes it here,
we're able to re-sign him for longer term in the future.
- Meanwhile, we're going into the Draft
and a lot of the teams that are doing the same thing we are
but these are when the calls are made
and kind of out of the blue, we get a call from Winnipeg
that Dubois isn't gonna re-sign there.
- Gentlemen, the League hates news taken away
from the Stanley Cup final, but here we are.
A three team deal on Tuesday, an extension on Wednesday,
and now some very significant,
if not somewhat expected, news out of Winnipeg, Pierre.
- But our understanding is that Pat Brisson
has informed the Winnipeg Jets that his client
isn't inclined to sign an extension this summer,
not even a one year bridge.
- [Reporter] Talked about it,
there were rumblings for a couple of days,
but the LA Kings finally land Pierre-Luc Dubois.
- Whoa! This is a seismic shift.
What do you think?
- It's a big move.
And we knew that the LA Kings and the Montreal Canadiens
were kind of the two front runners here
for Pierre-Luc Dubois.
- [Reporter] 'Cause I mean the LA Kings
are getting a big centerman, who,
those guys don't come around very often,
you know this, right?
- [Commentator] Dubois, for the lead, scores!
(crowd cheering)
- If you take the top 32 Centers in the League,
you can see over the last five years,
just eight of them have been moved.
That means just one or two of these special opportunities
arise each year to grab a Center
that's in the top 32 in the league.
- [Commentator] Here's youngster Cole Perfetti.
Great pass! Kicked and rebound, scores!
(crowd cheering)
Pierre-Luc Dubois and the Jets strike first.
- For us to get a six foot four Center
that could come in and be dominant and help us
and especially in our division now
when we're looking at the good teams,
you gotta be one, two, three down the middle
and you gotta be really strong.
So we really feel for the next few years,
it makes us very dangerous as a team.
- [Commentator] A pass ahead,
here's Dubois on the breakaway,
Pierre-Luc Dubois, scores!
(crowd cheering)
- Blakey went out, negotiated, executed on the deal
and now we're left with one of the best center groups
in the NHL.
We have Kopitar, we have Dubois, Danault, Lizotte,
all four very capable, very strong players in the League
and we think this will help us build
that sustainable Stanley Cup contention team
for years to come.
These championship teams,
these teams that are good year after year,
I mean, that's what we're aiming for.
We wanna have sustainable success here with the Kings
not just a one or two year window.
So we know to do that,
you always need a wave of talent pushing up from underneath
and so the draft is the main way to do that.
- Nashville, Tennessee, Kings fans,
51 weeks outta the year they call this place Honkytonk,
this week it's "Hockeytonk."
The LA Kings don't have a first round draft pick
in this year's draft.
- Never heard of him.
- Connor Bedard?
- Conners Menard?
- Connor Bedard.
- Connor Spedard.
- Doesn't ring a bell.
He's a hockey player?
- Yeah!
- You know, maybe in previous years
and going back four or five years we had high picks, right?
Sometimes that top 10 pick, it's a little different player
than where we are now.
Strategy does change in that regard.
- It's just what you want.
Well, I mean this is,
these three, these three clearly ahead.
Like that's a home run for us.
We need 12 others to go.
- Yeah.
- But that will be a home run for us.
- And often people think about the draft
as who's at the top, who are the star players
and that kind of defines the draft.
But if you do your draft studies,
you look through past drafts,
you'll see every year there's diamonds out there.
You don't have to have a first round pick
to find a really good player.
- From Liberec, Jakub Dvorak.
From Prince George, Koehn Ziemmer.
(crowd cheering)
- You really gotta do your homework
on what type of person you might be getting.
- It's good to have you, buddy.
- Is it a competitive player?
A little bit of background
about the person and things like that
and that is still important.
That type of thing, no matter where you're drafting,
where you're gonna get the player,
those things are are still real important.
- Yeah, the meetings went really well with LA,
I've talked to 'em a lot throughout the year
and one of the top places I wanted to go
to be honest with you.
And I'm really excited now and ready to get going.
- [Zach] The scene now shifts to development camp,
which could be the first time to see all five
of these young men in Los Angeles.
- None of us got that experience,
speaking, like at the draft.
- That's true. - We were on TV,
- We were all on TV.
- Yeah.
- Sitting on our couch.
- It kind of made it fun.
'Cause like when mine, I got to have a lot of people there,
a lot of people, family and friends.
Like you see, like going up on stage
and like being around other buddies that draft
and that's pretty cool.
- It's a completely different experience.
- It is. Exactly.
Like, it's not like.
- Didn't you guys rent out like a bar, too?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mine was actually, mine was good, mine was good.
- With the eighth pick in the 2021 NHL draft,
the LA Kings are proud to select
from the Barrie Colts of the OHL, Brandt Clarke.
(all screaming)
- [Reporter] That's our fourth D-man in eight selections.
Look at Brandt.
- I enjoyed it and like still made the most of it,
but it would've been cool just to be like, walk up on stage.
- Yeah.
- Do the whole thing.
- We bring the players in here to LA and it's not hard.
We just want to,
'cause some of the players we have never seen
because we just drafted them,
so we kind of get to know them, get to know their strengths,
like I said before on the ice,
what type of player they are,
how comfortable they get around our staff.
- I think the whole staff, top to bottom,
player development, even like head staff,
it's all guys that used to play.
They all played the game for a really long time.
They all have a lot of experience, wisdom, to share down,
it's not just somebody that just like fell
into this position, they earned it
and they played for a long time,
so that's pretty cool.
- There's certain players that are not,
like you said, are the best in their teams
and it's hard, it's a big jump.
So we kind of recognize that as a development staff.
We'll kind of see how he reacts to,
wow, there's a lot of other good players out here.
So then that'll help us maybe set a path for him
or how to work with this certain player.
- What's up?
Morning, boys.
- Good morning, guys.
- We're a little quiet today, eh, boys.
All right, let's go, four circles, boys.
- [Glen] Kinda work with Yannetti a little, a little bit
in a sense that he will give us a little more information
on the certain player.
Can we push 'em hard?
Does it have to be tough love?
Does it have to be nice all the time?
Do they take criticism well?
- [Jarrett] Right here.
Okay, give him a hard, harder, harder.
- Say Jarret Stoll or Matt Greene or O.D. have
like the D and Stolie and Mike have the forward,
they'll go over their shifts individually
and see what he says.
See how they talk or think about themselves.
Some players, they critique themselves too much.
Some players don't do it enough
because they think they play great every game.
So it's a balancing act for sure.
- Do that after every practice
or every second practice, right?
It doesn't take it, just grab a teammate,
fool around on the boards a little bit, right?
Deal with spinners, deal with on your backhand.
You know, it's hard.
We all have these curves now with the nice toe curves,
so taking it on your backhand, it's tough sometimes,
so practice that.
- Everybody wants it fast, right?
And it's not just the fans that want it to happen quick
or the coaches, it's also the player.
The players, they wanna see results quickly, too.
And for an 18 year old, 19 year old, even 20 year old,
it's so demanding
and it's so hard to become elite at a young age.
- Ah, I did it way too late.
- [Coach] That's not even close.
- Way too late.
- [Brandt] Oh!
You were not gonna be denied there.
- When a good, young player comes in the room,
there's two things that happen.
The veteran players look at him
and they say, "How is that guy gonna help our team?"
There are veteran players that have played
in this League a long time,
they want kids to come in and help our club.
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Second part of that, when the players are in the locker room
and they look around at that young player,
"Whose spot is he gonna take?"
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- Those spots?
If these young players are driven and they say,
"You know what, I'm gonna go grab that spot,"
that's awesome.
That's what the development staff wanna see,
kind of makes it, for the upstairs staff,
the hockey operation staff,
to make a tough decision sometimes.
And that's what you want.
You want someone coming in here and going to grab a spot.
And yes, if you look at our roster, it's pretty good.
Not a lot of open spots,
but you go and show the hockey operations
and management side, they'll make a spot for you
if you go and grab it.
- [Brandt] We win.
- It's an eye opener for a lot of them, for sure.
To see the players that come in here
and then they might see Kopitar or Danault skating
like they're here at the facilities
and they'll be like, "Wow, look at them working out,
I thought I was working out hard,
I'm not working out nearly as hard as these guys
and they're NHL players."
It's the hardest to stay in the League.
Yes, it's still hard to make it,
but to stay in the League and hold your spot,
it's a tough, tough sport and a tough League and teams are,
it's all about winning, right?
Pro sports is all about winning.
LA Kings wanna win.
- We happen to be a team that's playing the right way
because we have Anze Kopitar, because we have Drew Doughty.
So these young players are not just come in
trying to get goals, they're trying to help us win.
Talent, skill will help you win game,
but the character, heart will help you win the championship.
We've taken the next step,
I remember Todd talking about like we, it was a marathon.
- To get through a marathon,
it takes a lot of those intangibles.
It takes heart, it takes commitment,
it takes sweat and blood and tears.
I don't know if the Kings, when they won their Cups,
were the most talented team but they had those intangibles,
they ran the marathon.
Do some of these players wanna run it again?
And there's no shortcuts.
You can't go from one to 14 to 22 and almost be done,
you have to run every mile.
- We're definitely near the end of marathon
going uphill still and you want to keep running.
- [Mikey] Hello.
How are you guys?
- [Crew] Good.
- Like here?
- [Crew] Yeah.
Like there? - [Crew] Yeah.
- Just like that? - [Crew] Yeah.
- I like the fact that LA
has become a destination that we want,
making the playoffs the last couple years,
not having the success we want or need,
but a team that's kind of coming on the rise,
so, we want to continue to push that forward.
- It started back when as an organization,
we try to do as much as we can for the players off the ice
in everything they do.
And you always hear that players will talk and they know
and I think if you keep doing it right every year,
over and over again, sometimes it pays off
and some players will pick you.
- You didn't do the, you weren't with us last year on this?
- No.
- No, I know, you're new.
- Yes.
- Anyways, welcome.
- Kind of new, yeah.
- Are you going slap shot or just like a wrist shot?
- [Crew] Full slap shot.
- Full slap shot?
- [Crew] Yeah.
- Because I was gonna say, I might, I trust myself
but I don't know if I trust myself.
We're gonna go right over the net right now.
- [Crew] And shoot it, right? What?
- [Marco] That's my stick.
- Hi, Marco. Gosh.
- [Marco] Should play with that one.
- [Mikey] It might help.
Maybe that'll gimme his stick this year.
- [Crew] Is that his stick?
- I just gotta, I just gotta beat Dewey.
If I can beat Dewey, that'll be a, he might retire.
- Everything. It's way higher than I expected.
I love the team, we're such a great team.
Everybody. It's like a huge family.
- You do a picture together?
- Are we doing a buddy picture here or what?
- I gotta take my helmet off, we're doing a buddy picture.
- [Kevin] Everybody loves each other.
Laugh with each other.
You know, we have a lot of fun.
- [Vladislav] On the lap, no, thank you.
Maybe next time.
- Our scouts do a really good job
at breaking down guys and making sure they gonna come in
and fit the way we play.
- [Crew] Yeah!
- [Mikey] Yeah. Thatta way, Phil, you're a natural.
- At the time when Trevor left our team,
we were in a completely different situation than we are now.
We were trying to inject youth, find new players
and we were prepared to bite the bullet a little bit more
and find Trevor Moore and find Phil Danault,
now we're at the other end of the scale
and Trevor Lewis fits our organization
much better now than he did that year.
- [Trevor] No, was good.
- [Crew] Okay, good.
- [Trevor] Gotta work on my intense face.
- Rob and Luc have built something with our organization,
a couple things that are on our board,
as soon as you walk in the doors,
you gotta be competitive, you gotta be coachable
and you have to be a good teammate.
- Last year, was expected of us to make the playoffs
and obviously get a little further than we did
but now it's, yeah, it's definitely time.
- We just have to take it day by day
and enjoy each other and play as good as we can,
but I'm very excited.
- We're climbing, you know, it's a mountain
and we're climbing the mountain and we're almost there.
We still have 82 games to play.
It's a long season, so we just gotta be patient.
- The message is clear.
We're gonna not go in there for a vacation,
we're going there to prepare for the season,
so that's the the most important thing.
- It's gonna be an exciting environment when we get there.
It's new to everybody and the opportunity for the 27 players
that we'll take to bond is also a positive.
- When you're a player, sometimes you don't realize it
but like when you retire you're like,
man, this is pretty cool,
we got to go to Australia to play a couple hockey games.
(upbeat funky music)
(tense classical music)
- [Todd] It does come with some risks, the travel,
the toll that it takes on the body.
We're trying to look at it from the other perspective,
I think there can be a lot of positives that come out of it.