The Los Angeles Kings have started off their offseason filling a hole in the form of familiar face.

Peter Budaj makes his return to LA from Tampa Bay in exchange for Andy Andreoff.

The 35-year-old netminder was expected to be Andrei Vasilevskiy’s backup last season but he underwhelmed with a 3-3-1 record, with a 3.77 GAA and an .876 save percentage. In the end he lost his job to Louis Domingue who appeared in 19 games compared to Budaj’s eight.

However, in acquiring Budaj, you are getting a goaltender who is comfortable with the organization and Jonathan Quick is comfortable working with. At the start of the 2016-17 season, Quick went down with a groin injury that only saw him play 17 games.

Budaj was forced to take the reins as the starting goaltender for the Kings where he helped them stay afloat in the playoff race by recording a 27-20-3 record with 2.12 GAA and a .917 save percentage in 53 games. Once Quick was healthy, Budaj was later packaged to the Lightning in a deal that saw Ben Bishop with the Kings for a short period of time.

After trading Darcy Kuemper to the Coyotes for Tobias Reider, the Kings were forced to lean heavily on the Quick to end the regular season. From the trade on Feb. 22 onward, Quick played in 18 of the 24 remaining games, only getting days off on back-to-backs.

While the lack of rest didn’t exactly hinder Quick in the playoffs (1.55 GAA, .947 SV% in four games), the 32-year-old is getting up there in age as far as hockey years go and having a capable backup is necessary for an 82 game season.

In Andreoff, the Kings are losing a capable checking third line forward who has proven to be a good teammate in his four season with LA. In 159 games with the big club, he has scored 13 goals and 24 points while amassing 214 penalty minutes.

Kovalchuk looking at California teams

There have been reports recently that Ilya Kovalchuk is looking to come back into the NHL fold after “retiring” from the league in 2013. He has set his sights on both Los Angeles and San Jose as possible destinations for his return.

Last season in the KHL he had 31 goals and 63 points in 53 games with the St. Petersburg SKA team. Ordinarily older players tend to slow down as they get older but the 35-year-old former first overall pick had his best KHL season in 2016-17 with 32 goals and 78 points, followed up with more than a point per game last season.

Prior to his recent success, he has had some issues with the management of his KHL teams where he ended up being taken off the playoff roster during the 2015-16 season due to “poor performance”.

As far as how Kovalchuk would fit into the Kings team, it’s a little more of what the team already has. Having not seen him play live in a number of years, one would assume as he’s gotten older he has probably gotten slower. One of the big needs for this Kings team is speed so finding a fit for Kovalchuk in that regards might be hard as he could have some issues keeping up with the Toffolis, Pearsons, and Reiders of the world.

However, offense is something that was sorely lacking throughout the regular season and was forefront in the playoffs. The Vegas Golden Knights ended up outscoring the Kings 7-3 in their four game series, which shouldn’t happen. If Kovalchuk is anywhere near his previous self, any team has to take a chance on him.

It brings the question up for fans, what do you think the Kings biggest need is in the off-season? If Rob Blake could fix one thing what would it be?

Feel free to let me know what you think @Kirshenblatt

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