Sorry for the quick double post, but it was warranted.
As a nice surprise to West Coast LA Kings fans on a Sunday morning, Bob McKenzie of TSN tweeted out that the Kings had signed veteran defenseman Christian Ehrhoff to a one-year deal.
Ehrhoff, 33, is coming off a 49 game 2014-15 campaign with Pittsburgh where he missed a good majority of the season due to an upper-body injury.
The German was most recently signed to a one-year deal with the Penguins worth $4.00MM AAV for the 2014-15 season.
For anyone wondering if he can still play top four minutes and make a top four contribution...
Details on the money portion were released slowly after, and it looks like $1.5MM is the price tag for the one-year deal. If anyone is keeping tabs, that is around two Deryk Engellands.
The Kings LH defensive group already includes Alec Martinez, Jake Muzzin, and Brayden McNabb, so it will be interesting to see where the left-shooting Ehrhoff will slot in. Notably as Alec Martinez is more comfortable playing his off side, as is Ehrhoff. The Kings definitely seemed like they needed to fill out one more slot in their top four defense with the departure of Andrej Sekera and the continued absence of Slava Voynov, and Ehrhoff brings just that.
He logged an average of 21:45 last season when he did play with Pittsburgh, holding a -2.75 ESO (More defensive posture) and a decent 51.4% corsi for percentage at even strength. Lombardi and Sutter are both familiar with the defenseman, as he was part of the San Jose Sharks organization in the early 2000's which was coached by Sutter and GMed by Dean Lombardi. Lombardi actually selected Ehrhoff in the 4th round of the 2001 NHL Entry draft. On a one-year deal this seems like a solid all-around low-risk high reward deal as the Kings wait for younger reinforcements to fill out the roster in the near future. Ehrhoff has eclipsed 40 points three times in his career, including a career high 50 points in 2010-11 with the Vancouver Canucks. He has 327 points in 741 games and has also played in 73 playoff games across six seasons with the Sharks and Canucks.
More details will be updated as news trickles in.
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