Post Trade Deadline Chat With the GM

It’s been over 5 months since we last met with the GM of the EHE’s Los Angeles Kings. But after a pretty busy, relatively speaking, trade deadline day yesterday, GM Brandyn Errickson sat down to answer some of our questions in regards to his team.

LA Times: First off, let me thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Seems like you were a bit busier than normal yesterday?

Brandyn Errickson: No problem, thanks for being here today. Yeah, I was in discussions with no less than half a dozen other GMs here in the EHE and it was a lot of fun which is a good change as the team hasn’t quite performed as we expected coming into the season.

LAT: Since you brought it up, let’s talk about the expectations of the Kings this year. You went out and made some additions during free agency, but that was about it. What were you expecting coming into the 2018-2019 EHE season for the Kings?

BE: Well we were coming off a 100-point season and we didn’t really lose anyone from that group so we thought at the very least, we’d be in for another triple digit point season. We really thought our goaltending could use a bump so we went out and spent what we thought was smart money on a front-end goalie in Ben Bishop and a solid bottom 6 winger in Ryan Callahan. Unfortunately, it just hasn’t work out as we thought it would. That’s not a slight to either guy either, they came in and played hard and really gave their all.

LAT: I guess that’s another easy transition, the couple of deals you made yesterday involved both guys. Can you tell me your thinking on moving Ryan Callahan?

BE: Sure. I’ve talked to a couple of my fellow EHE GM’s about him for a few weeks. Nothing serious really came about and frankly, I was hoping the team would get out of the funk and string together a few wins to make me believe we could at least get back in the playoff picture. As that didn’t pan out I wanted to get Cally on a team that could use his experience and leadership in the playoffs. Thomas contacted me early in the day about him and said he’d check back in closer to the deadline. When he did and Cally was still available he made an offer that I thought was fair and I gave Ryan the call that he had been moved. He thanked me for the opportunity to play in LA and said he looked forward to joining a good Chicago team.

LAT: What about the Ben Bishop trade?

BE: When we signed Ben this past offseason we were really excited to get a front-line guy between the pipes for a reasonable price for the next 4 seasons. But when the team started to flounder we knew he would be a piece many teams would be interested in and they definitely were a number of possible suitors. The talks for Bishop were a lot more intricate than those for Callahan. You can’t miss when you trade away a number one goalie who has term left on his deal. I had some great conversations with a few GM’s and it really came down to a two-horse race between Vancouver and an east coast team. The east coast team had the edge until about an hour before the deadline when Travis upped his offer to include the 2019 first round pick. That sealed it for us. It will be quite a change to hear LA being called to make a pick during the first round of an EHE entry draft.

LAT: Let’s also not forget this was your first trade since February 26 of last year. Care to comment on that?

BE: [Laughing] I figured that would be come up. Listen, I’m not Martins in New York or Thomas in Chicago or even Travis in Vancouver who had some unbelievable trades before the deadline last season. The other GM’s would probably call me a pain to deal with, but I’ll just categorize myself as stubborn and maybe a bit overly attached to some of the guys on the team. Why haven’t I made multiple trades this season? Well as I said earlier, I really liked the team coming into this season and let’s be honest, it’s not like I took over a team flush with high end prospects, high draft picks or even interesting minor league players. This team hasn’t taken a player in the first round of the draft since 2015! If you don’t have those three pieces, then all you can deal from is the pro roster and I wasn’t interested in taking that plunge. Would other GM’s contact me about certain players? Absolutely, but those discussions rarely went anywhere as I was focused on keeping our core together to give us the best chance to win games. When the team started to slip in the standings I knew this would be as good a time as any to try and get some additional pieces to get the Kings to where we want to be if not now, definitely in the near future.

LAT: Are you ready to call this a rebuild?

BE: No, I don’t think so. We still have as good of a top six forward group as any other team in the league. We have a guy who we think is about ready to be a number 1 defenseman in Parayko to go with some great potential on the back end in McAvoy and Werenski, but those guys have to mature and get ice time to become the guys we think they can be. At this point, I’d call it a retooling. Once again, this coming offseason we aren’t looking at a mass exodus of unrestricted free agents so I think with a few good moves we could be back in the running as early as next season.

LAT: So, when dealing what was your number one goalie, where does that leave the team now in that respect?

BE: We like Grubauer a lot. We received a lot of interest in him which just tells us other teams see him as a number one goalie as well. We hope in making this move the team rallies behind Phil and he shows us he’s our answer in net for the future. We’ll see what happens there, but we will definitely be on the lookout for at least a solid backup this offseason.

LAT: What about head coach, Guy Boucher? Has your faith in him wavered at all this season?

BE: I think everyone has to be held accountable, the coaches, the players and of course, me. We like what Guy brings to the team, but the team has not performed how we expected and I know Guy would agree with that. We’ll see how the team does down the stretch and after the season we’ll sit down and figure out what we think is best for the Kings.

LAT: In closing, is there anything else you’d like to tell the faithful Kings fans?

BE: Absolutely and thanks for giving me the opportunity to do so. Kings fans, I know this season hasn’t turned out how you wanted nor how we expected it to, but you can rest assure we are trying our best to turn the ship around and get back in contention for the Stanley Cup. While that might not happen this season and we know some of you are not happy with the moves we made yesterday, we are better in the long term. I’d also like to thank Ben Bishop and Ryan Callahan for their hard work and being the best Kings they could be and we wish them both good luck on their new teams.