Rob Blake out as LA offseason begins

Blake spent eight years as the Vice President and General Manager of the Kings, helping the team transition from rebuilding after the Stanley Cup years to a perennial playoff contender, reaching the postseason each of the past four years.

Unfortunately for Blake and the Kings, the first round is as far as they would get. While it’s a little unlucky to have the luxury of facing two of the world’s best players in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl four years in a row (thank you, NHL playoff format!), the fact of the matter is Blake did not put a team together that was capable of making a deep playoff run.

The 2024-25 version of the LA Kings was indeed the best one yet, the most likely to take down the Edmonton Oilers. But many of the same flaws showed up in round one: the lack of a true number-one center to go toe-to-toe with McDavid, the lack of a true number-one defenseman as Drew Doughty was less than 100%, the continued reliance on defensive defensemen, and a defensive system in an era that promotes offense. And, some new flaws: a head coach unwilling to trust his young players or his depth, and an apparent inability to adjust a playing style at the most crucial times.

In their exit interviews, the players largely shouldered the blame. But in professional sports, someone higher up often pays the price, and in this case, it was the general manager.

Blake did a lot of good in his tenure in LA. Early trades of Jake Muzzin and Jack Campbell to Toronto brought back excellent returns in the way of prospects (Carl Grundstrom, Sean Durzi, Trevor Moore) and draft picks that helped build out the team’s depth.

His acquisition of Viktor Arvidsson in the summer of 2021 and signing of center Phillip Danault that same offseason began to push the Kings closer to relevancy and eventually a playoff birth in the 2021-22 season. I will always defend the trade for Kevin Fiala, a player type the team sorely needed, even if it cost him high prospect Brock Faber (who, at the time, was one of a plethora of right-shot defense prospects) and a first-round pick.

Credit where it’s due, Blake was willing to make a bold trade. Not only the aforementioned Fiala trade, but trading away Kings’ legend Jonathan Quick to acquire Vladislav Gavrikov and Joonas Korpisalo in an attempt to strengthen the roster at the 2023 trade deadline showed he was willing to take a chance. Something I know I like to see in my GM.

The now-infamous PL Dubois trade didn’t work out in the end, but you could see the logic behind it and, again, I’d rather my GM be willing to take the swing than not.

All told, there are plenty of positives (though many will have disagreements as well) in Blake’s trade history. Heck, he hit a home run just two months ago, acquiring Andrei Kuzmenko for a third-round pick. But at the end of the day, the team hadn’t gotten quite enough contribution from their higher-end draft picks, and his blind spot toward the modern-day defenseman ultimately did him in.

Who’s Next?

The (multi) million-dollar question is who replaces Rob Blake. This has LA Kings fans holding their breath. While zero playoff series wins in eight years is worthy of a change in direction, if the torch gets passed to the current Senior Advisor to Blake, Marc Bergevin, well then it will very much be meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Hopefully, team President Luc Robitaille is willing to have a more expansive search outside the organization. Who comes in to replace Blake will also, presumably, get an opportunity to review the status of Head Coach Jim Hiller and the team’s organizational philosophy as a whole.

The first part of implementing organizational change has occurred, and who the team decides to hire as its next general manager will dictate the foreseeable future for the LA Kings.

We will get a little more insight into this on Tuesday afternoon when Robitaille addresses the media.

Main Photo Credit: Morgan Hancock, Getty Images