It was a day of transition in El Segundo Friday as the Los Angeles Kings practiced and awaited the arrival of newcomer Jeff Carter, acquired from the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for Jack Johnson and a first round draft pick on Thursday. The Kings are hoping to have him in the lineup Saturday against Chicago (5:00 PT/FOX Sports West) after passing a physical, though he had not arrived in Los Angeles by Friday’s practice.
A larger-than-usual media contingent gathered at the Toyota Sports Center, including representatives from Canadian outlets TSN and Rogers Sportsnet as the team’s reaction to the Carter-Johnson trade and potential subsequent trades was gauged.
There was support from several voices for Jack Johnson, who begins a new chapter of his career in Columbus after his arrival with the L.A. organization along with Oleg Tverdovsky as part of a Sept., 2006 trade that sent Tim Gleason and Eric Belanger to Carolina.
“I played with Jack since he’s been coming into the league, and you kind of see him grow year by year,” Dustin Brown said. “He’s a good player. You’ve kind of got to give up something to get something in return. I talked to him a bit last night. I think he was as OK as you’re going to be when you get traded. I think he’s excited about the possibility of probably being ‘the guy’ in Columbus. I wished him the best of luck, and I’m sure he’ll do fine.”
With Brown’s name also surfacing in recent trade rumors – though Hockey Night in Canada’s Elliotte Friedman may have doused some of those rumors with water Friday afternoon (link: https://twitter.com/#!/FriedgeHNIC/status/173117159617200128) – he revealed the battle waged internally between the natural distractions at this time of the year and the need to prepare properly for the battle of a National Hockey League playoff push.
“I can’t say you don’t think about it, but more along the lines of getting here and getting on the ice and working on what I need to do to play well on Saturday – ultimately my main focus is being the best I can for every game,” Brown said. “It’s the same thing every year around this time. Your name gets thrown out there, other names get thrown out, and at the end of the day you’ve got to get yourself ready to play.”
“You can’t worry about stuff that hasn’t happened yet.”
One player who won’t have much to worry about through the trading deadline is defenseman Willie Mitchell, whom the Kings signed to a two-year, seven million dollar extension Friday.
“I’ve played in the league a little while now, I’m getting older and the clock’s ticking, and I want to win a Stanley Cup,” Mitchell said prior to the announcement Friday.
Mitchell, whose influence on younger players was detailed in a FOX Sports West feature earlier this season, spoke eloquently on how a team deals with a significant shakeup faced with a nasty dogfight in front of them.
“Not to be cliché, but our job as players, we just kind of worry about what we’ve got to do and trying to worry about what I’ve got to do to help this team win and get in the playoffs. It’s where I want to be.”
“All I’m trying to do is worry about my game and what I can bring to the table, to the team. But in a macro scale, of course, we’re not naïve to the fact that as a group, collectively, we haven’t done the job as good as we’ve wanted or scored as many goals as we’ve wanted. I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re underachieving a little bit in that department, and sometimes you just need a little kick in the pants or a little spike to get things going. Obviously Dean felt that was necessary.”
Having spoken to Carter by text message last night, Mike Richards is looking forward to welcoming his close friend and former Flyers teammate to the fold in Los Angeles, and was consulted the morning of the trade’s execution.
“I was asked about Jeff [Thursday] morning a little bit and what type of guy he is off the ice, and that’s the only time I’ve heard about it,” Richards said about whether he had anticipated the possibility of Carter joining the Kings via trade.
He also gave a scouting report of the player with whom he described as having “played together a little bit, but not enough for a whole year.”
“It’s a quick release, it’s usually on net, so I think it surprises a lot of goaltenders,” Richards said of Carter’s shot. “Used with his speed, he shoots the puck in stride a lot, and when you do that, I think you catch a lot of goalies by surprise.”
With the moves made Thursday, defenseman Slava Voynov was recalled from Manchester to continue his eleven-point, 33-game rookie campaign. The 22-year old is likely to slide in alongside Mitchell and should see similar minutes while providing an accurate shot from the point on the power play.
Much like the crowded blueline that necessitated Voynov’s assignment to the American Hockey League earlier this month, Andrei Loktionov was edged out by a deep group of centers and was assigned to Manchester on Friday, a move explained by head coach Darryl Sutter.
“Cause there’s 23-man rosters and to be able to recall Slava, we’re certainly not going to waive somebody because of the risk of losing them, and that’s a 24-hour thing, so you have a couple of kids here that don’t need waivers, and [Loktionov’s] got to continue to play,” Sutter said of the need to make a roster move.
“With Jarret [Stoll] back healthy, you bring Carter in and your three centermen. I’m not playing Lokti on a fourth line. It just doesn’t suit him. He’s pretty much got to play center, so with [Richards] and [Kopitar] and Jarret there and [Fraser] is your fourth line centerman, it’s way better he’s playing because in five days you have total access to him, anyways, because with a 23 man roster now, in order to bring Slava up, you’ve got to free a spot up. It’s got really nothing to do with performance. It’s like when we sent Slava down, we sent him down to make room for King and Nolan on the roster, and Jarret went on IR. It’s just counting.”
When asked about the possibility of future roster moves, Sutter discussed a meeting with the players on Thursday in which trade-deadline distractions was one of the topics covered.
“You know what? I coach. Coach the players you got. Anything other than that – it’s like meeting with players yesterday, I told them ‘before this happens, ‘you guys have got to put distractions aside. It’s not like you’re 10 points out or you’re 10 points up. You’ve got to stay in the moment to have a sense of urgency, and you can’t have distractions other than, quite honest, having to deal with a bigger media pack today and knowing that players are coming in. There can’t be a distraction’.”
“That’s why they have trade deadline days, right? That’s part of the deal.”
