LA Kings President Luc Robitaille joined Jesse Cohen and Zach Dooley to talk about the LA Kings roster makeup, the recent Frozen Fury preseason game in Salt Lake City and the constant adjustments being made to the league’s changing protocols due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Robitaille is in his fifth season as Kings President as he directs and oversees all hockey and business operations. It’s his 15th season overall in the Kings front office, previously spending 10 years as President, Business Operations after completing his Hall of Fame career on the ice.
On the plans to improve the team with free agent signings over the summer
We said a few years ago we had a plan and as things are moving, things evolve, but when we started looking at our roster last year, we clearly could tell that we needed a little bit of help for the next few years. We always talked about getting a couple of guys that can help us on our top six because to expect guys that are 18-22 years old to come in and help you win the cup right away it’s not fair. For them to come in and help you win games and help you get better, yes, but to become a top player it takes a few years to establish yourself. Connor McDavid came in the league and he was really good, but the Oilers weren’t and he wasn’t surrounded well in the beginning and that’s what they’ve been trying to do ever since. Having a player like Drew Doughty that knows how to win, what he’s done in the past, these guys want to see that we’re taking it to the next level and we told them, we’re going on the upswing and moving forward and that was the goal.
On playing a Frozen Fury preseason game in Salt Lake City
First of all it was great. We’ve had a good time going to Salt Lake the last three years now. When we lost the game in Vegas because of the Golden Knights coming into the league, we were looking for another place to get a home preseason game so we don’t have to have it at STAPLES Center and charge our fans, that was the most important thing. When we started in Salt Lake, our staff decided to call it Frozen Fury and the way it works in the preseason, it doesn’t have anything to do with the league so you try to schedule a home-and-home with other teams. We called Vegas and asked instead of playing in LA, would you mind coming to Salt Lake City? It’s an easier trip for them and it was great. I know there are a lot of Golden Knights fans in Salt Lake City so I knew it would be a really good crowd too. It was a win-win, it was fun because we had way more LA Kings fans that flew in or came. I foresee that this event will get better and better.
On the process of scouting and bringing Vladimir Tkachev to LA
Our guys have been on him for a couple of years, but this past year I attended a couple of the meetings when we were talking about him and then Rob Blake started talking to his agent with all of our European scouts and we started watching him. I know our guys have been on him, but we knew this was the year to bring him in because over there when a guy is in Russia he’s got to get out of his contract too, it’s never an easy thing.
More to come today on LAKI with a reflection back to the first two games of the 2021-22 season and a look ahead to the team’s first road game in Nashville on Tuesday night!
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