Quoting: OldNYIfan
This would be disastrously bad for us. I think it might wreck the team, which up to now was building nicely to contender status. Dubois is a selfish whiner and a quitter -- two qualities you rarely want in a team sport. He's quit on two teams and two sets of teammates, and I foresee him quitting on the Kings three seasons down the road if not sooner. This would be a completely wrong turn for us.
Acquiring Vladi Gavrikov with a 2023 first-round draft pick and paying him $5,875,000 instead of getting Jake McCabe ($2 million) for a 2024 first-round draft pick and signing another veteran LhD like Carson Soucy ($3.5 million) was a bad mistake which we could have survived. This one, we can't.
Of course, all these rumors may be mis-direction. Maybe Blake is actually doing his job and working out a deal for Connor Hellebuyck. We can only hope.
It reeks of Blake feeling pressure from ownership. I don't agree with the price they paid Gavrikov, but the fit makes it worth it. But as you say, PLD has red flag after red flag.
To me it's also an admittance of poor development by the organization in terms of their prospects, which I've been wondering out loud about (on here and on LAKI) for the past year and a half.
2017- Vilardi; center
2018- Kupari; center
2019- Turcotte; center
2020- Byfield; center
Not a single one of these has panned out into an actual center yet. The Kings went out and signed Danault in a move that at the time looked like just buying Byfield some time to develop. But a move for PLD would signal they don't believe Byfield will turn out to be the 1C that they need to replace Kopitar. The scary thing is that I think PLD is AT BEST a 2C, that's getting hyped up because the market otherwise is terrible.
Quite frankly, I'm of the opinion Blake just runs it back from last year. Sign Vilardi to a 3.5-4mil deal, sign Korpisalo to a 2mil deal, move Grundstrom and Lizotte if needed for the space, and hope your young guys continue to build, which it seems they are.
This possible move terrifies me.