EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- After Game Six sealed a fourth-straight loss to the Edmonton Oilers for the Los Angeles Kings, many fans wondered, "Is this the loss that finally sees people lose their jobs?" On Monday, we got that answer, as it was announced that general manager Rob Blake and the team had mutually agreed to part ways.
The timing made sense with Blake's contract retiring and another year of failure, making the messaging easier here. However, regardless of the contract situation, it was time to move on from Blake as general manager.
While many fans won't view this as a difficult decision, make no mistake, it was. You could feel the weight of the decision weighing heavily on Jim Hiller and several players during Monday's exit interviews, and regardless of your opinions on his tenure, that was a franchise legend being fired, which is never easy for executives.
Unfortunately for Blake, his tenure as the Kings' general manager will be remembered as one of failure. Since he took over in 2017, the Kings have failed to win a playoff series in five attempts and seemed to get caught between rebuilding, leaving the Cup teams fully behind, and trying to win with remaining legends Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty.
Like any GM, Blake had his share of hits and misses. Most notable of the misses was the now-infamous Pierre-Luc Dubois trade two summers ago, a move that sums up a lot of the problems LA had under Blake.
During the seasons LA spent in the basement of the league, Blake and the front office preached the importance of patience from the fanbase while they "rebuilt' through the draft, but failed to show that patience themselves.
Once they had a sniff of returning to the postseason and making more runs with Kopitar and Doughty, they abandoned patience, moving right back into win-now mode after just three seasons of picking in the top.
First-round draft picks were traded in successive years. Prospects were traded, most notably Brock Faber, who was massively on the rise as a prospect, and Gabe Vilardi, who was coming off a breakout season, leading to the Kings netting very little from their "rebuild." Quinton Byfield and Brandt Clarke look like potential stars, and players like Alex Laferriere and Alex Turcotte look like good complementary players, but the Kings have failed to extract the value you'd expect out of what was considered one of the league's best prospect pools a few seasons ago under Blake.
That lack of consistent building and unwillingness to patiently wait for the prospect pool Blake built to carry this organization into a new era has ultimately undone him. It's possible that ownership was unwilling to wait, forcing Blake to accelerate their plans, but we can only evaluate what we know to be true.
Maybe the patient approach wouldn't have worked either; the Kings could have fallen into the trap teams like the Buffalo Sabres or Ottawa Senators fell into, being unable to take the step out of the basement of the league for too long. However, what we do know is that Blake's plan didn't work.
There were some good additions over the last few seasons, players like Phil Danault, Viktor Arvidsson, Kevin Fiala, etc., all improved the team. But, they've ultimately raised the floor of the team while limiting the ceiling. Those moves got the Kings back into the playoffs after three straight years of missing from 2019-2021. You can call it hindsight, but this team likely would have benefited from another year or two of high picks and missing the playoffs.
Whoever the new GM is for this summer, that will be their task. How do you now raise this team's ceiling with minimal prospect support coming, some core piecing aging out or hitting the latter half of their primes, and limited assets to trade? It's a difficult proposition for that new GM.
Of course, it isn't all negative either. Byfield and Clarke took big steps forward this season, with Byfield showing flashes of true stardom. The Kings' goalie pipeline is one of the best in hockey, and you have a strong core of complementary players to build around.
One key might be accepting that you aren't going to make a big run with Kopitar and Doughty leading the way again. Maybe they'll still be on the roster for a potential run, but they can't be the headliners, and navigating that situation will be an important part of the new GM's job.