ESPN.com’s Pierre LeBrun, one of the best in the business, unofficially kicked off the summer trade/free-agent season with a strong blog post today, including his thoughts on why the Kings are the “prime landing spot” for Ilya Kovalchuk… Kovalchuk camp continues to gauge market Incidentally, I think there is certainly interest on the Kings’ part, [...]

Here’s something to keep in mind, in terms of the discussion of assistant coaches. A couple years ago, the Kings put a new policy in place. The basics, from what I understand, hold that members of the hockey-operations staff are not allowed to have contracts that extend beyond the general manager’s contract. Dean Lombardi’s contract [...]

I received the following from Craig Renetzky, the attorney who is representing Mark Hardy… ———- Press Release MARK HARDY RESIGNS AS ASSISTANT COACH OF THE LOS ANGELES KINGS Los Angeles, CA  June 11,  2010:  Mark Hardy has resigned as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Kings effective immediately and has voluntarily entered an alcohol [...]

Kings assistant coach Mark Hardy, who is facing charge of fourth-degree sexual abuse, has resigned from the team. A brief statement from the team said, “Mark Hardy last night resigned from his position on the Kings’ coaching staff. We have no further comment on this matter. The search for a new Kings assistant coach will [...]

The spirited debate the other day about whether the Kings should retire Rob Blake’s jersey led me to a question: who, if anyone, should join Marcel Dionne, Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille, Dave Taylor and Rogie Vachon on the Staples Center wall? There are a few potential candidates. Blake ranks seventh in franchise history in points [...]

Since rumors are bound to be thrown around soon — not that they ever really end — it might be instructive to at least look at what the Kings are facing, salary-wise, entering next season. Below, I put together a reasonable look at the Kings’ 2010-11 lineup  (just a semi-educated guess, particularly in terms of [...]

The NHL Draft is rapidly approaching, and some have asked about the “prospects clinic” that is taking place on June 24 in El Segundo. I have some information on that. Basically, it’s a clinic for local youth hockey players (they’ve already been selected), which will be run by Willie O’Ree, Daryl Evans, Jim Fox and [...]

Congrats to the Chicago Blackhawks for winning the Stanley Cup, and if you watched the postgame celebration, you might have seen a semi-familiar face. John Torchetti, the Kings’ interim coach for 12 games after Andy Murray was fired late in the 2005-06 season, got to lift the Cup as an assistant to Chicago coach Joel [...]

I’ve finally been able to piece together enough reliable information to give an update on the legal situation involving Kings assistant coach Mark Hardy. Those unfamiliar with the details of Hardy’s May 21 arrest — and the subsequent charge of fourth-degree sexual abuse — can click here and here for previous posts. The following information [...]

I’m working on some stuff — draft-related and otherwise — that hopefully will generate some good content soon, but for now, there’s this. There are reports, from the Denver Post and the Sharks’ flagship cable TV outlet in San Jose, that Rob Blake is set to retire. That means that sooner, rather than later, the [...]

The one and only Bob Miller was a guest this morning on the NHL Network/SiriusXM show “NHL Live.” Bob, as always, is a good interview, so click below to check it out…

As we know, the Kings have the 19th overall pick in the first round of the NHL Draft. Unlike the past few years, when it’s been relatively easy to pick a handful of first-round prospects who might end up as a King, this year it’s wide open. Conventional wisdom might be that the Kings will [...]

In this last part of the interview with Dean Lombardi, he talks about his expectations for the Kings going forward… Question: Your team’s basic goal this season, to make the playoffs, was pretty obvious. You’ve talked, in the past, about how difficult it can be for teams to follow up on that, to build on [...]

The Kings’ Web team has a fun new feature running this summer. They’re sifting through years of video to find some of the classic fights in Kings history, and putting the video online every day this summer. At www.lakings.com/fightclub you can view the fights and vote and comment on them. There are already a few [...]

The NHL summer unofficially kicked off last weekend, when management types of all stripes met in Toronto for the draft combine. The combine features 100 draft-eligible prospects, who are put through workouts to determine their physical fitness, and also have interviews with teams to determine their mental “fitness.” For some details at what happened at [...]

Two prospects, defenseman Niclas Andersen and forward Geordie Wudrick, are no longer a part of the Kings’ organization. The Kings did not sign either player by the June 1 deadline, meaning that Andersen becomes a free agent and Wudrick will be eligible to be drafted again this month. Andersen, 22, was a fourth-round pick of [...]

In this segment of the interview, Dean Lombardi talks about the depth of the Kings’ prospect pool, and the short-term challenges he faces in managing those prospects’ development. Lombardi also talks in detail about the possibility of Brayden Scheen being on the Kings’ roster next season, and allows all of us (myself included) to learn [...]

Tickets for the NHL Draft, to be held June 25-26 at Staples Center, can be acquired and downloaded at LAKings.com/nhldraft starting Saturday at 10 a.m. Tickets are free, other than a $1.25 service charge per ticket, and a maximum of four tickets is allowed per person. The ticket is good for both days of the [...]

The next part of the Dean Lombardi interview focuses on the future. How can the Kings get better next season? How much of the improvement will have to be done internally, and does Lombardi believe that he will have to be active on the trade and/or free-agent markets this summer? In this part, Lombardi talks [...]