(Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images)

When Dean Lombardi became President/General Manager of the Los Angeles Kings on April 21, 2006, he took command of a sinking ship.

His NHL lineup had a bit of talent, but it was one of the oldest in the league and was not good enough to make the playoffs. The rest of the Kings’ system was mostly devoid of young talent, the result of the Kings mismanaging assets from the big club to the minor and junior leagues.

Indeed, the ship was sinking fast. You could even say it was already starting to go down by the bow.

Lombardi quickly realized that drastic changes were necessary in order to save the ship and in just a little over three years, the Kings went from one of the oldest teams in the league to one of the youngest. Their system went from one that had almost no legitimate prospects to one with about a dozen prospects that other NHL general managers have coveted.

In terms of trying to build a franchise from within, that is definite progress.

“We’ve come along much faster than I thought, considering it’s an eighteen-year-old draft, with the emergence of [defenseman Drew] Doughty, [forwards Wayne] Simmonds and [Oscar] Moller already coming in and playing,” Lombardi said in an interview on June 13. “So I think from the direction that I always wanted to take this, it’s starting to manifest itself.”

“I can see it underneath,” Lombardi added. “That’s my job. A general manager is supposed to be able to see what everybody else can’t. That’s your job. That’s vision. I think it’s come up quicker than I anticipated.”

One of the reasons things are happening so fast for the Kings is that they got younger fast, seemingly in an instant.

“The one thing that’s different between this team and [what I had in] San Jose was that gradually, over six years, we improved every year and got younger every year until we had six years of improvement and we were the third or fourth youngest team in the league,” said Lombardi. “That team [was] completely set up to move forward, make its deals and [had the vast majority of] its players come from within.”

“This team didn’t transition down gradually like that team,” added Lombardi. “That was my goal. You had to hold the fort with older players in San Jose like [former Sharks who are also former Kings] Kelly Hrudey, Marty McSorley, Bernie Nicholls. That was similar to [our Ladislav] Nagy, [Jaroslav] Modry and those older guys.”

“This team transitioned very quickly. It went from one of the oldest to the youngest and...that other team has no upside. When you look at their back end, it would have been great five or six years ago. But where’s your upside? Where are you going, let alone the fact that your team is filled with mercenaries?”

Many of Lombardi’s critics point to the recent success of the Chicago Blackhawks, who advanced to the Western Conference finals this past season. They argue that Lombardi is a poor general manager because the Kings should be doing as well as the Blackhawks by now.

Lombardi said the Kings are not at the same point in their rebuilding efforts compared to the Blackhawks, but are on a very similar track.

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