Offseason Game Plan

LOS ANGELES - After the Franchise's best Regular Season the LA Kings are trying to rebound from another 1st Round Playoff-Exit with a strong offseason.

On Top of the Offseason Game Plan was the re-signing of pending UFAs Chris Kunitz, Martin Gerber and Lubomir Visnovsky.
After successfully and nice negotiations, all of them could re-sign with the Kings and will be in the starting lineup in the new season. Due to the new contracts of those three, the Salary Cap which remains 50 Mio was pretty tight and the Kings still had three RFAs left, which made it difficult to fit them into the Cap.

That's why the Kings management decided to part ways with RFA Niklas Hagman and will let UFA Mathieu Schneider leave via Free Agency. Negotiations with Lasse Kukkonen and Maxim Lapierre are still on going and should be closed within the next week.

With those Roster moves, that will leave some spots open on defense and offense. The Kings management hope that Derick Brassard and Luca Sbisa will come in good shape into the training camp, since they'll be give every chance to grab a spot in the opening night line up!

Also open will be the backup postiion. Since David Aebischer, with his heavy contract, probably will be given the startin goaltender job in Manchester where he'll share the load with Jason Labarbera.... This would leave the spot open for cheap Tobias Stephan or John Curry, who is in the verge of signing an entry-level contract with the Kings.

The Kings are looking forward to the upcoming entry draft where they hold 6 Picks in the Top 60 and a total of 12 points.... Maybe we'll see more moves when the draft is getting closer, but the Kings certanly know what to do with all their Picks....