The L.A. Kings have made some big splashes in the past few days, signing free agent D Rob Scuderi and acquiring LW Ryan Smyth and his fantastic mullet via trade from Colorado. Kings fans are rejoicing, and with good cause. The Kings haven't made a playoff appearance since 2002, and has long been among the least desirable teams to result from pressing the random button during team select, but that may be about to change. The man they call 'Captain Canada' not only has the best mullet this side of Jaromir Jagr, he's won five gold medals for his home country and has averaged .72 points per game for his NHL career. Smyth may be getting a bit older, and his rough-and-tumble, crease-crashing style of play is taking its toll, but the man still managed a 59-point season last year on a terrible Avalanche team. Even more appealing is the contract that Smyth brings with him; his deal with Colorado was heavily front-loaded, so Captain Canada may come at a high salary right now ($6.25 million against the cap), but by the '10-'11 season he'll only be making $4.5 million. This gives them a potential top line of Smyth-Anze Kopitar (who has never scored less than 60 points in an NHL season)-Justin Williams (the one-time All-Star whose last full season resulted in 67 points) for at least two years, a line that could easily kick in over 100 points, even if Williams doesn't quite return to his All-Star calibre play. Alexander Frolov, Jarrett Stoll, and Dustin Brown are good young players who should all be good for around 40 points apiece for secondary scoring.
The offense shows promise, as does the defense. The Kings dealt Tom Preissing, a pretty sturdy defesenseman, to get Smyth, but signing Scuderi makes up for his absence. Scuderi, possibly the most coveted free-agent defenseman on the market due to his late-game heroics in the playoffs, signed for the next four years. In addition to how hilarious his name sounds if you say it with an accent, he's an overall +13 for his career and has averaged around 19 minutes of ice time in five NHL seasons. If he can become a mentor of sorts to younger Kings defensemen Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson (whose names aren't as funny, but at least they're alliterative) they should have a solid D corps.
Lingering questions remain: What if Doughty, #2 overall pick in '08, and Johnson, who has yet to really live up to his own high draft position, don't develop fast enough for this unit to gel, or at all? What if Smyth or Williams continue to have nagging injury problems as they have the past few years? What about the Kings goaltending situation (projected starter Jonathan Quick has an NHL record of 22-20-2)? I have no answers to those questions, but can point out that, according to nhlnumbers.com, the Kings have $13.585 million dollars of cap space remaining, which is nothing to sneeze at. Aside from an iffy prospect in goal (who very well may start and be awesome, who knows) this definitely wouldn't be the worst roster in the league to hit the ice if the season started today. I'm not saying that they're on the verge of making a run for the Stanley Cup, but at the very least, it may not suck so bad to be a Kings fan for a while.
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