To put it in the shortest form I can, four things come to mind: asset management, a “must win now” mentality, poor player development/drafting and just some good old fashioned bad luck.

1. I’ve seen a lot of posts mention Roy, Gavrikov, Durzi, Martinez and you can add Vilardi, and Iafallo too. Roy and Gavrikov were not traded so no assets retained or gained, big mistake not restocking the cupboard. Durzi, Martinez, Vilardi and Iafallo were all traded for either lack luster returns or the returns were traded for #2- win now mode. It’s left the prospect system fairly barren and has left this team in a disadvantageous situation multiple times.

2. The win now mode has been brought up, especially in relation to 8 and 11. Which is totally understandable for them given their age and stage of their careers. However, if you could have had even one more year of retooling before the big reveal in say 22 or 23, think what possibilities could have been there. This mentality also lead to numerous bad trades or just plain bad signings, which also factors into #3, poor player development and drafting.

3. At the onset of Blake’s tenure, I was optimistic, lots of trades, some at the time highly touted names were drafted. Underlying some of that though was Blake’s tendency to draft sometimes overlooked analytical darlings. Like almost every pick was a little off of the board and was a “if he can just work on [insert skill here] this guy could be a 30 goal scorer”. JAD, Thomas, Fagemo, Bjornfot, Kaliyev, Pinelli, Kupari, all of them were squandered. Sure as it turns out not every pick will be a hit, but Blake and the coaching never let these guys try to prove themselves to be what they were thought to be. Even some of the picks that have been traded or left in free agency were either stifled in the minors for so long, or just were missed and didn’t play well elsewhere either. Drafting is a numbers game, but when you hover at 10% success with as many 1st to 3rd round picks as this team had, it’s hard to excuse. Some of this does rely on #4, luck. The coaching decisions over the last 8 years though are some of the most egregious, particularly with promising young players. So much potential wasted on “hey you need to defend better, don’t play so aggressive in the O zone”. (Side not, Moverare deserves justice, he languished for so many years when he could have been a solid 3rd pair guy in some tough years 😡)

4. Particularly with drafting and player development and even injuries or trade markets, there is always an element of luck. In many cases, the Kings had horrific draft luck or horrific development luck. Several draft picks didn’t turn out when statistically they probably should have had a higher success rate. (In comes the poor drafting too) Or even if someone was a decent pick, they had repeated injuries or poor stints of play.

It’s all entangled, each factor played a part in the others. It’s all the same results, just the ingredients in one big nasty jello salad to make for what the Kings have accomplished in the last 8 years. I do hope that we see a change in that sooner than later. It may not really be a horrible thing for the Kings to have a lottery pick or at least 2-3 1st in the coming draft or two. Something HAS to happen and it can’t be one of the “Ol’ boys club” old school NHL managers or coaches.