Twenty percent of the 2022-23 BEARD season has been played. Where do the Los Angeles Kings stand after 23 games? Let’s have a look.
LA currently sits near the bottom of the league with 19 points for 28th place, 7 points from a wild card position at 7-11-5. All 5 overtime games were losses. Not what GM Emile Lakatos had envisioned before the season started.
The Kings started off with a bang with an 8-5 victory over Vegas scoring 5 goals in the 3rd. Lost 2. Won 1. Lost 2. Won 1. Lost 5. Won 2. Lost 2. Won 1. The club just ended a 5-game losing streak with a 4-2 victory over San Jose.
Lakatos realized he needed to shake things up. After extensive talks with various teams, he pulled the plug on the team and made some changes over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Traded to Washington Capitals are Adam Larsson, Ondrey Palat, Lars Eller and Sean Kuraly. Coming to Los Angeles are Matt Duchene, Jordan Staal and Brad Hunt.
The next trade was with the Vancouver Canucks. Traded to the Canucks are Tanner Pearson and 2 prospects (Kasper Puutio and Ryan Healey). Heading to the Kings are Erik Haula and Vancouver's 5th round pick in 2025.
"We could not generate a winning streak of more than 2 games. I thought we would be winning the close games instead of losing them. We needed to make some changes," said Lakatos.
Stat lines going out:
Palat: 9-6-15, -6
Kuraly: 5-5-10, -10
Larsson: 3-4-7, -7
Eller: 2-5-7, -7
Pearson: 3-2-5, -7
Stat lines coming in (new Kings additions):
Duchene: 7-9-16, E
Huala: 8-5-13, E
Staal: 3-3-6, -8
Hunt: 0-2-2, -2
"We think the new lineup will hopefully start playing better and start to climb back up to a playoff spot," added Lakatos. When asked if he was still searching to make other changes, he added, "not at the moment."
"We want to give the new line up a chance."
Despite Lakatos' comment, there is a rumour that The Kings are still looking to upgrade the roster at the defence position. Also rumoured was that The Kings held extensive talks with the Blackhawks - however, it appears that those talks yielded no results in trades.
Curiously since the Chicago players learned of the rumour, they have won 3 in a row. I wonder what happened there!
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