It is time for the Kings to say goodbye to the older players at the deadline
The LA Kings have a fair amount of people over 28 who are eating at the cap and it’s time to say goodbye to some of them. Such as Dustin Brown who is 36 and at the end of his career, yes he was a Stanley Cup hero, but it’s time to get the most you can for him and let him and his contract go.
Current guys over 30 and their contracts:
Dustin Brown 37- 5.8MM cap hit this year and then UFA at the end of the season.
Anze Kopitar 34- 10MM cap hit until 2024.
Drew Doughty 32- 11MM cap hit until 2027.
Alexander Edler 35- 3.5MM cap hit UFA at the end of the season.
Jonathan Quick 35 – 5.8MM cap hit until 2023.
It is time to say goodbye to most if not all of these even if they are captains or wearing the A. Doughty and Kopitar hold a massive cap hit for their age, on a team that needs to get younger. While their contracts might make them hard to move, they need to move them for draft picks or to continue to stuff the minor leagues with talent.
None of them are going to get any better or younger, and some are not even playing full minutes for the team.
Who could the LA Kings move and how does the cap look going into the deadline?
While four of the five were the foundation for their Stanley Cup run it’s time to cut loose, free up the cap and look toward the future. Nothing good has ever happened by keeping older guys who run themselves into shells while still paying them top-end money. Doughty and Kopitar are not worth it to the franchise, but there are more than a few playoff-bound teams who would jump at them and shell out some picks or prospects.
Going into the off-season if the Kings can have a top-end cap situation and multiple picks in the top-90 this team will continue to grow into what we all expect it to be. It’s never easy getting rid of franchise icons, but you need to think about the future of the team and who is and is not of value and these five at the moment are going to hold the franchise back moving forward. Kopitar, Doughty, and Quick will eat almost 27MM in cap space into 2023. That is not going to be a recipe for success moving forward.
So it’s time to say goodbye, thank you, and best of luck to names that one day will end up in the rafters.