LOS ANGELES — First-round picks were flying off the shelves like bottled water in a hurricane watch.
Boston gave up one. So did Vegas. So did Tampa Bay. So did Nashville and Winnipeg. The Stanley Cup chase has turned into casino night. As the trade deadline passed on Monday, it was difficult to discern activity from accomplishment, but it sells tickets and hope.
The Kings took a pass on Manic Monday. They’re still committed to win-now and win-later. You can do that, even with a snug salary cap.
They didn’t trade their top pick, and they told anybody who wanted Gabe Vilardi to talk to the hand. Vilardi was last year’s first-rounder and he has 43 points in 23 games at Kingston, in the Ontario Hockey League. He isn’t going anywhere because, without some young blood, neither are the Kings.
Besides, the Kings didn’t wait until the deadline. They got high-minute veteran Dion Phaneuf and center Nate Thompson for defense, and they had managed to inflate the value of goaltender Darcy Kuemper so they could trade him to Arizona for Tobias Rieder, a 24-year-old winger with speed.
A recovering Jeff Carter will have more impact than any of the newly acquired parties, and Trevor Lewis is mending as well.
“I look at that lineup and say it should compete for a playoff spot,” General Manager Rob Blake said.
Shortly before he said that, Michael Amadio came off the ice. He was the AHL’s player of the month in December. Amadio has also played 23 games for the Kings. They had lost three consecutive games when they got to Buffalo on Feb. 17, and Amadio scored twice in a 4-2 win. They went on to win at Chicago and Winnipeg with Amadio on board. In limited minutes he has seven points. His imprint has exceeded his numbers.
“He showed he could play in the NHL,” Blake said. “Like a lot of players, he came up the first time and then went down and said, ‘You know, I can play in that league.’ So he came back up in a different way.”
Amadio, 21, was a third-round pick in 2014. At the time he was known as a reliable penalty-killer who had been well-schooled defensively, at least by junior hockey standards. The next year he exploded for 50 goals with North Bay, becoming a second-team OHL All-Star in a league that already had Mitch Marner (Toronto) and Alex DeBrincat (Erie).
“I just found I was more confident shooting the puck that year,” Amadio said.
Last year he came up for the AHL playoffs and was playing in last-minute, game-deciding situations. His minutes will dwindle for the Kings with the arriving and returning veterans, but he’s heard that before, along with the dogged criticism about his speed or lack thereof.
The Kings weren’t supposed to have young talent. This year Adrian Kempe is plus-12, Alex Iafallo has played 60 games and been on the top line for many of them, and Paul LaDue is carving out minutes on defense.
Blake might have loaded a lot of that youth, plus future picks, on a truck that could have brought Erik Karlsson or Ryan McDonagh. He didn’t, and he ridded himself of Marian Gaborik’s salary in the process.
San Jose made the strongest move in the Pacific Division when it got Evander Kane from Buffalo. Kane was available all season because of the Sabres’ wretchedness and his own reputation for clubhouse dissent. The Sharks only owe Buffalo a first-round pick if they sign Kane, which they are unlikely to do, and that’s in 2019 anyway. If Kane becomes a free agent Buffalo only gets a second-rounder.
The Ducks will say they won the trade season early when they swapped Sami Vatanen for the eternally useful Adam Henrique. On Monday, they signed Chris Kelly, late of the Canadian Olympic team, and then traded the versatile, fast Chris Wagner to the Islanders for 38-year-old Jason Chimera, who scored 20 goals last year but only two this season.
Perhaps they feel Chimera can flame up and score like Steve Thomas did in 2003. Meanwhile, Kelly and Antoine Vermette can reminisce about their days with the 2007 Senators, who lost to the Ducks in the Cup Final.
Meanwhile, Patrick Maroon joined the burgeoning Ducks alumni association in New Jersey, which got him from Edmonton for a third-round pick. That’s not a high price for Maroon’s malevolence, his passing skills and his finishing prowess, but the Ducks preferred to rent elsewhere.
With all that, the Kings entered Monday night two points out of the playoffs, as the storm nears. No time to abandon the foundation.