Two Minutes In the Box... with Willie Mitchell

It seems like nearly every team in the league is always looking to add another top-six forward and a quality defenseman.

Over the summer, the Kings were in that same position. So, while the Ilya Kovalchuk negotiations dominated the early headlines, perhaps the deal deserving equal attention was Dean Lombardi's ability to acquire Willie Mitchell.

The Kings GM loves to compare hockey to baseball and in MLB it's said that pitching wins championships. In the NHL, it's defense (and goaltending...and your centers...but, hey, that wouldn't make for a good story).

Mitchell was coming off a serious concussion that forced him to miss the second half of last season. Just hearing that worried Kings fans who know all too well about how things turned out with players like Jason Allison and Adam Deadmarsh.

Perhaps this was different. Premier teams in the league - such as the Washington Capitals and San Jose Sharks - were also heavily pursuing the free agent blueliner. Low and behold, he signed in LA, making a strong defensive core even better.

Below are some comments from Mitchell about how he's fitting in with the Kings, what he's learned about Drew Doughty and the play of young Jake Muzzin...

MM:  Any thoughts so far after a few games here with the Kings?

Here We Go Again...

In April the Kings returned to the playoffs for the first time in eight years.

After losing a grueling six game battle with Vancouver, some suggested the Kings were only a player or two away from making a serious run next season.  'Who would the Kings add over the summer?' almost immediately had loyal fans worked up into a frenzy.  Message boards began lighting up with conjecture and wish lists.

The team's previous trip to the NHL's spring dance in '02 was captained by Mattias Norstrom and featured Ziggy Palffy, Ian Laperriere and Mathieu Schneider.  By the time the Kings returned for their 2010 run, those names had been replaced by guys like Dustin Brown, Drew Doughty and Wayne Simmonds.

LA's previous exit came against the Colorado Avalanche - the same team that defeated the Kings in a bitter seven game series the year before.  Emotions and tempers were running high in that initial series for two main reasons.  One, Rob Blake, the team's long time captain, had been dealt to the Avs just before the trading deadline a few months prior - a trade that still stokes the ire of many Kings fans to this day.  For his part, Blake said things like "I came into the league a Los Angeles King and that's what I wanted to remain" and "we're in a business" when he stopped by MayorsManor earlier this year to talk about his move out of LA.

On a more positive note, the 8th seeded Kings had just upset the heavily favored Detroit Red Wings in the opening round - largely due to the heroics of Eric Belanger and the then-newly acquired Adam Deadmarsh (who arrived in the package from Colorado as part of the Blake deal).

The Kings were close that year.  The Avs were already there.  After beating the Kings, they went on to win the Stanley Cup in 2001.

In a familiar sounding scenario, the prevailing thought at the time was if the Kings could add perhaps one key player over the summer, they'd be considered a serious threat the following season.  Instead, they let Luc Robitaille walk in early July - a move he talked about in an interview with The Mayor, saying "I still don't quite know what happened. I thought we had a great run...I had a great year. I was 11th in scoring in the league...But then I was offered a pay cut. I wasn't expecting a huge, um - I don't know what I was expecting. But I was expecting something."