The Kings have already made one big bet on their blue line, and that move has only sharpened the questions around Drew Doughty.
Brandt Clarke signed a five-year extension before July 1, and that deal appears to have nudged him into the role Los Angeles wants him to own. The conversation now is what that means for Doughty, who is entering the final year of his contract at $11 million per season.
On Sirius XM NHL Network Radio on Saturday, July 4th, Jon Hoven laid out the tension plainly during the season finale of TFP Hotstove with Dennis Bernstein, Dave Pagnotta, and Ryan Paton. Asked about Doughty’s future and Clarke’s rising role, Hoven didn’t soften his view.
“I have said this when it comes to Dought. I’ve said this as many times as I possibly can on as many shows, podcasts, etc.
I think the situation with Drew Doughty is a very volatile one. I know everybody’s trying to play nice publicly and saying everything’s fine; we want him to retire a King, and he wants to retire a King.
This is a situation that just screams Jonathan Quick 2.0. You have a player who’s probably not coming back to Los Angeles beyond this year, but he wants to continue to play and plans on playing for at least three or four more years, and there’s money in the marketplace that will pay him.
Drew Doughty is still a very serviceable defenseman. You can argue he’s not a top pair guy anymore, but put him on a second pair or a third pair, limit his minutes, the hockey IQ is off the charts, it has been since he was a teenager He’s a hockey savant, while he might not know a lot about a lot of other things, he knows everything about hockey, and he’s the type of guy that teams like to have, both in their locker room, i.e. Team Canada, recently and out there on the ice in big moments.
Is it down to the Edmonton Oilers and Ottawa Senators for Claude Giroux?
That’s also an issue because you need to let the reins loose when it comes to Brandt Clarke. Brandt Clarke should be the number one defenseman on this team.
He should be on the top pair. He should be playing on the penalty kill, as well as playing offensively on the power play.
He should be anchoring the top power play.
If you look at the underlying metrics last year, Brant Clark was the Kings best defenseman. Period.
There’s no argument about it. Every metric will tell you; the eye test will tell you all that; all the stats and advanced numbers will tell you he made everybody he played with better.
He was their best defenseman, and you have to let him go.”
That’s where the Kings’ dilemma starts to look a lot like the Jonathan Quick situation. Ken Holland has said he’ll talk extension with Doughty after the season, which mirrors the approach Los Angeles took with Quick. Quick was later dealt to the Columbus Blue Jackets and then to the Vegas Golden Knights, where he won his third Stanley Cup.
Doughty and Quick are both Kings legends, and the 2012 core of Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Doughty, and Quick will always be tied to the two Stanley Cups they delivered in Los Angeles. But the organization is clearly moving toward a different phase, and Clarke’s new deal only reinforces that shift.
The open question is whether Doughty stays on short-term one-year contracts if Holland brings him back, or whether that kind of setup becomes the thing that pushes him toward a different ending.
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