Photo Credits: Jenn G. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Authored By: Adrian Rosati

The Leafs but West are hoping for a bounce-back season. Los Angeles is coming off getting swept in the first round by the Colorado Avalanche. They’ve now lost in the first round in five consecutive playoff appearances.

The crazy part is that despite playing in what has generally been a weaker Pacific Division over that period, the Kings have been unable to win even one round. The likely reason? They’re a veteran-heavy, older team. The average age going into this season is approximately 31 years old, which would have been even worse during the Kopitar years. They also go into this season without their captain, who retired last season.

Major Moves This Offseason

Additions:

F Mats Zuccarello — Signed as a Free Agent

F Erik Haula — Signed in Free Agency

Subtractions:

F Andrei Kuzmenko — Left in Free Agency

F Mathieu Joseph — Left in Free Agency

Evaluation of the Offseason

General Manager Ken Holland didn’t do much this offseason to improve his team. Instead, he decided to get older and add whatever he felt was good enough.

Zuccarello is a proven veteran commodity. He consistently can get you into the mid-50-point range, even in his very late 30s. But as time has gone on, his susceptibility to injuries has increased. Zuccarello suffered multiple injuries last season, which only allowed him to play 59 games. He has not played over 70 games in three straight seasons.

He is effective, producing at almost a point-per-game pace, but how many more years does he have in him before Father Time catches up with him? This may be his last chance to produce at a mid-50-point level.

Zuccarello is currently slotted as Los Angeles’ second-line right winger. If he continues to deal with injuries, maybe he could be replaced by Laughton, but it’s certainly a risk if he’s playing so high up in your lineup.

Haula, who is also older, is coming off a 38-point season with Nashville. The good thing about him? He was available last year, playing 81 of the 82 regular-season games. He also provides the Kings with centre depth, as they can put Laughton into a setup/scoring winger role.

They could also bump Haula down to the fourth-line centre spot and slot Laughton in as a 3C in order to have four solid centres down the middle. This is a good pickup since he is relatively healthy, but it could turn sour as he ages.

Overall, Ken Holland had a poor offseason. I don’t understand how they got better.

First 10 Games

The Kings open their season in Colorado on September 30th at 10:00 PM ET. The Kings play three divisional opponents, including two playoff teams and one team on the rise: Edmonton, Vegas, and San Jose.

They also play six Eastern Conference teams: Boston, Florida, Washington, the New York Islanders, New Jersey, and the New York Rangers.

What a tough schedule out of the gate. Their only freebie is what? The Rangers at the end of the stretch. It’s a tough league to do well in, let alone when you play playoff teams or teams that have improved enough to be in the hunt pretty much every night.

For that reason, I only see the Kings going 3-7 to start the year. The Rangers are the free square. They could maybe beat the Bruins and catch a young New York Islanders team off guard early in the year. It’s going to be slim pickings against the rest, all excellent clubs.

My Prediction

I expect the Kings to finish 6th in the Pacific.

Listen, they’re not the worst team in their division, but they didn’t get better. Not even incrementally. This is the main reason why I believe they’ll struggle this year.

With such a tight cap situation as well, they have put themselves in a tough spot. It’ll be interesting to see what they can do this year, but unless they can get younger and make it fit with the cap, this is definitely a rebuilding year.