As far as General Managers go, I find Dean Lombardi extremely intriguing. The main reasons for that is that he’s open, honest and not afraid to talk in great-length about his philosophies and strategies.
People who follow the Kings have had many opportunities to listen/read Lombardi’s thoughts at length (especially on
Rich Hammond’s Daily News site) and because of the detail he provides, the moves that were made over the course of the draft were hardly surprising. He went in with 15 draft picks and a plan to build the future of the blueline and he went home with Drew Doughty (#2), Colten Teubert (#12) and Vyacheslav Vojnov (#32) to add to the reserve list behind Jack Johnson (acquired by trade in 2006) and Thomas Hickey (4th overall in 2007).
Following the draft on Friday and Saturday I had the opportunity with a couple other members of the media to talk to Lombardi and I think had he not been cut off after 15 minutes to catch the bus, we might have still been talking now. The guy just loves to talk about hockey and is extremely forthcoming and engaging.
When covering these events, which is something I don’t do too often I like to take the time to transcribe all my interviews to give you guys the opportunity to read all the quotes in detail. What’s interesting to some isn’t always the same as what’s interesting to others and since I have unlimited space, I may as well use it. So although you may have had draft overload the past couple days, tomorrow AM I’ll be posting the rest of the quotes I’ve collected from: Stamkos, Doughty, Bogosian, Schenn, Filatov, Hodgson, Boedker, Beach, Myers, Teubert, Cuma, Gillis, Fletcher and Murray. Plus I’ll have my complete thoughts on the moves and stories of the weekend and photos too.
By Wednesday AM we’ll jump right into the UFA analysis.
For now, here is my 15 minutes with Dean Lombardi:
Answer joined in progress..
“Our problem now, do I play Doughty now, let Teubert challenge for a job? Detroit doesn’t have to do that.. Here’s Lidstrom, you practice with him every day and there’s no better development than the power of imitation. You can do all the coaching you want, but pair a guy with Lidstrom and you all of a sudden seeing guys sitting up in the stands thinking I never thought he could do that.”
That’s what Kenny (Holland) said, let the older players teach the younger players:
“Exactly. So once you get that established then now you can carry it on and then you’ve got a core built. Everybody’s so close now, so there is that core thing but don’t forget that’s recent now. And those guys in Detroit, Philadelphia, Dallas they’re so used to winning now, they expect them to win. And that can be the difference. Everything is diluted now that little 5% can be huge, but it all ties together. And it’s fabulous to watch... If Datstyuk had been starting out as the first pick in the draft, you throw him in, you have to market him and everything, he wasn’t that great coming in and breaking in early. It wasn’t like he came in and did what Kopitar did. So I mean, who knows? If you would have put that on him right away, where would he be today? You do it right and look what you get. (laughing) I get all wired up.”
On next year’s team:
“One thing we got is three kids that went through the right process in the minors last year, but they’re all at the front-end.. Boyle, Purcell and Moulson. They paid their dues, they did the right thing and we were one of the youngest teams in the minors last year, they found a way to get into the playoffs. When we were the worst team in the league in February they actually came up and played pretty well and I remember my mother-in-law telling me something fifteen years ago – be very careful about playing young players... Hey she knows a lot about hockey. It was really funny, you know how some things somebody says to you a long time ago sticks in your head. We were sitting around the table, I don’t know how it came up, some kids were doing really well but their team was out of the playoffs and she looked at me and said ‘be really careful about judging kids right now. They all look good when they’re not playing for nothing... I don’t even know why I remember that but I think she’s so right because that’s what I was thinking with Purcell and Boyle. Teams aren’t ready for you, they don’t respect you, there’s no pressure on and you’re coming out and playing. Then you go through your whole summer, ‘I’m an NHL player’ and then you go back in October and go ‘oh wow, this is (inaudible).. Well you’re not an NHL player. So we sent those kids down and I told them, I said we were eight point out of the playoffs. If you’re going to show me you’re a winner, you go down and get this team into the playoffs. And all three of them, they did a great job. And I’m not happy with the first round – but I’m old school. They go and pout for a week, but they all sucked it up and they were good. I think now, now’s your shot. So I think they have – you’d never say they’ve got a job to lose, but they’ve earned it. But if they don’t earn it then you’re going to be back down here. I just wish we had defensemen that were on the same thing, we’re adding actually to our strengths, which is the forwards.
And this is the whole thing, is meshing that with the back. The same with the goalies. I think ideally if you follow the Nabokov, Kiprusoff train, Quick and Bernier and Zatkoff are in the minors. To see a goalie like Bernier challenge last year.. But with Nabokov, those kids learned immensely by going through the minors process. So the same issues there, is the timing. And if I can’t get the defense to mesh with the Brown and Kopitar and Frolov, Purcell then the whole thing breaks down again. And it just goes back to what we were talking about earlier about how it’s changed, you don’t have the 31-year old (UFA age), you have these kids making $5 million and so this goes back to what I was talking about. It’s a great day for us and it’s got the potential to have a very good back-end. You’ve got to make those guys bonafide and then you’ve got to mesh it with what we have and make it all come together.”
On Rob Blake:
“I’ve talked to him a number of times, I think he’d like to – the whole thing is his mindset, what his job description is, how many minutes he thinks he can play at the top, I think we’re certainly leaning towards him.”
On Justin Azevedo, 6th Round pick (153rd overall):
“Usually when you’re in the late rounds, you’re not usually, you’re either looking for a player that has one NHL asset. Then you hope the other ones can develop and I think in the Azevedo case, we all know that his unbelievable relentless heart and character. And guys like that you can never count out. There are too many instances in sport when a guy that has an undying commitment finds a way. You know he’s got some liabilities and things but sometimes these guys never go down without a fight and it’s worth it to take a shot at this.”
On Garrett Roe, 7th Round pick (183rd overall):
“Ya, he’s a little bit like I said in most kids that pan out in the late rounds, it’s usually with your team. That they had one NHL asset and they probably had other liabilities. It wasn’t vanilla across, it was like they had one NHL thing but there’s too many things here and then that’s why they fall, but maybe once you got here and maybe with one other NHL thing starts coming along, you’ve got a player and everybody looks five years from now, ‘how’d that guy slide to the sixth round?’ Usually that’s how those things happen.
On Vjateslav Voinov, 2nd Round pick (32nd overall):
“Number one, we know that he’s coming over here. He’s already committed to play either Junior or the American League, which I think was huge. Because a lot of the Russian players don’t want to come over until they’re NHL players. This kid has played at a high level already and was willing to go to Junior hockey. So even that was significant because most kids would then say, well he’s actually playing in a better league than Junior hockey but the point being that he wanted to come over here and play.”
Regarding the risk of him starting over here and then leaving to go home:
“That’s the other thing. I don’t think, everything we’ve got on him, all the background is..and these kids are giving up a lot, don’t forget. These kids are already offered a lot of money, a lot of money. This aint chicken feet anymore like it used to be twenty years ago. And unless we’re being totally misled, he’s coming over here right away and he said I don’t even have to play in the American League, I want to North America and I’ll even go play Junior. How I think he’s ready for the American League but it’s great to know that if he’s not, he can go play Junior. We gotta probably have to go through him with the language and stuff but that type of commitment – and he’s a good player. If he’s a North American player, he’s going high. And he’s got some spots and things, he’s probably got to get a little more to his game, he’s got to be a little more defensively, making better decisions and taking the hits sometimes – so he’s got some work to do, but for that spot in the second round, and he’s a right shot. So we ended up adding three right shot defensemen we’ve added. Defensemen period are hard to find but right shots are really hard to find if they pan out, so it was worth a shot.”
On Andrei Loktionov, 5th Round pick (123rd overall):
“He’s hanging around with Larionov. He’s with Igor in Southern California. Smart player, he was on that team in Kazan. Again, I think he probably goes higher without the Russian thing but the fact that he’s already over here training in Southern California, we looked at him as ‘ok, here’s another one that’s committed obviously’, he’s already turned down a lot of money over there and he’s training with Larionov... He was at the rink the other day with Igor. And you know what, if Igor likes him then he’s got to be a fairly smart player because Igor doesn’t like guys that don’t think the game.”
On Andrew Campbell, 3rd Round pick (74th overall):
“Ya, he really came on. This is one of those guys like Simmons who goes through a draft and now starts coming on and just kept getting better and better. So I kindof like him. I think he’s kind of one of those guys who moves from project to prospect, you know what I mean? I think you kindof look at him, he’s young, he’s going to get bigger, I like the fact that he took a puck in the face and saved a goal. I’ll never forget that game – I went ‘holy smokes’, he threw his face in front of the puck and came by I said ‘there’s our guy’. So I think he’s one of those guys who has graduated from project to prospect and he has a lot of upside, so I kindof like that pick in that spot.”
On how he improved the Kings this weekend:
“I think our reserve list – our young defense, now I think again is ranked is one of the – and its only potential, you know – but I think, you look at Nashville and that group of young defencemen, with Weber and Hamhuis, Suter, you know the way they went about, it’s very similar to San Jose. And it was the biggest weakness on this club’s reserve list when I took over. I think right now with the trade for Johnson, Doughty, Hickey and obviously Teubert I like our chances. We now have a chance to have something special down the road but as we were talking earlier, the trick now is to bring them along in the right way and mentor them with the Coach.”
On the loss of Cammalleri:
“I mean he’s a good player but this goes back to what we were talking about earlier. The fact of the matter is he’s a one-year asset. Our chances of signing him were probably negligible. I’m not sure we would have been able to do it anyways, given what his expectations were. And I thought it we waited to – we were going to walk away, if we didn’t find a deal we wanted, but one of the deals we wanted with him was to get Teubert. And if we could find that deal, we’d do it, if not I had a few other options but it was getting a little dicey. This also goes back to one of the things we were talking about earlier, is the sad part is he’s not an old player. This is still a fairly young player. But he’s older on the core side. The key guys, like Johnson, Kopitar, Brownie, O’Sullivan, these guys are actually in a different age bracket. So what you’ve got to do is they’re probably going to lead the charge. And then the defensemen come behind them, and the goalie. But it’s just kindof ironic that Cammy and Fro, in some cases you’d consider a little older because of where they are in the system. So they’re way from being old guys on the bridges and everything anyways but they did a good job but it was never going to be a nucleus when you have to go out and get six free agents. That’s not the way to build a team and its not going to hold the core. But in terms of bringing that core, the irony was they were the old guys that could fit in the core, Cammalleri and Fro. And he’s right on the core so I’ve got to turn that around and so Teubert can come in behind Kopitar and those guys. The challenge now and the first thing obviously to try and get Kopitar and Johnson signed to long-term deals. That’s the trick. It aint a trick but I guess easier said than done.”
On the choice between Doughty and Bogosian:
“Really tough. As I said, the one thing we looked at, we picked up – and this is the hard part, when we liked Doughty, because of like everyone says, hockey sense first, his competitiveness and toughness. But it also makes it sound like they don’t have the other things. I mean you’re talking about two elite players. But the one thing that kindof distinguishes him a little bit is this guy you’d consider toughness and competitiveness, this guy it’s hockey sense. But they are all, it’s not like well ‘Doughty must be soft’, and that’s the impression. That’s why when I was asked on TV the other day, I was like ‘that’s an unfair question’, I mean they’re both great players... But that was probably the difference, but then go back and that was part of the reason I really wanted Teubert was that I loved the other guy’s competitiveness and now I’m going to go out and get that thing that Bogosian had, and I’m going to have both. So that was kindof why I was really fired up to go get the other guy, because that guy has Bogosian’s toughness and competitiveness, so now I’ve got that whole thing. And even when you build a defense, that’s kindof what you’re looking for, is the mix. So if you look at the projection of Johnson, Doughty, Hickey, and like I said don’t count out this kid Martinez, that element that Teubert brings, is now – and then again people think the game has changed and you can get a bunch of guys who are 5’11 and move the puck, I don’t know. But I still like – and I’m getting old – I believe you have to have that guy that commands respect.”
Danny –
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