LOS ANGELES -- As the 2006-07 season has worn on, one thing has become very, very clear.

The Los Angeles Kings are not a good team. Not at all. And if you look at the numbers, they tell much of the story.

The Kings (18-30-7, 43 points) are in last place in the Western Conference, 29th in the National Hockey League out of thirty teams. Big reasons for that are that they are 28th in the league in goals against and 29th in penalty-killing.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Indeed, the Kings are definitely not one of the NHL's best. But based on what has happened to this franchise since last spring, the question is:

What did anyone expect?

After all, the Kings have been in full rebuild mode since last summer. Nevertheless, some in the mainstream media (translation: those who do not cover hockey regularly) have lit into the Kings, pointing out how they have stumbled their way through the season and even going so far as to point out various "mistakes" made by the franchise.

The most recent example of such criticism came in a January 31 podcast in The Sports Examiner where Rich Perelman criticized the Kings for not waiting until after they played at Calgary before trading veteran center Craig Conroy to the Calgary Flames.

Conroy made his former team pay by scoring two goals against them, leading the Flames to a 4-1 victory, and Perelman pounced on that fact.

"The Los Angeles Kings season is going from bad to unbelievable," said Perelman. "Yesterday, they traded 35-year-old center Craig Conroy for a couple of draft picks and laid off about $2.4 million in annual salary costs."

"So what does Conroy, who had scored a total of five goals in 52 games, do in his first game with the Flames, against the Kings? He scores two goals in a 4-1 Calgary win! Couldn't they have waited to trade him until after yesterday's game? I can't tell you his name, but his initials are General Manager Dean Lombardi."

Given that the Kings would not have been favorites to win that game even with Conroy in their lineup, and that the Kings have been competing for the first pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft rather than a playoff spot for most of the season, Perelman's criticism could not have been farther off the mark.

Although the Kings and the NHL as a whole need all the media exposure they can get these days, sometimes you wish that those members of the media who obviously have no interest at all in hockey would just ignore it entirely...for the good of the sport.

FIRE SALE BEGINS

With the Kings in full rebuild mode and so far out of playoff contention, it has been clear for quite some time that the Kings would be sellers at the trade deadline, and probably in a big way, and Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi confirmed that recently.

"I think where the team is right now, given where we're at, we could be a seller when everybody's a buyer," said Lombardi. "Maybe we can maximize asset value in terms of draft picks and young players."

Indeed, Kings players who could be attractive to other teams include forwards Derek Armstrong and Sean Avery, defensemen Rob Blake, Aaron Miller, Mattias Norstrom, Brent Sopel and Lubomir Visnovsky.

Although any player could be dealt (even Wayne Gretzky was traded...twice), it is unlikely that the Kings will trade any of their younger talent such as Dustin Brown, Michael Cammalleri, Alexander Frolov or Anze Kopitar, who is likely to be the future star that they will build around.

To be sure, the Kings will indeed be sellers at and before the February 27 trade deadline, and as mentioned earlier, the expected fire sale began on January 29 when they sent Conroy to the Flames in exchange for center Jamie Lundmark, a fourth round pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft and a second round pick in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft.

Conroy, 36, scored five goals and contributed eleven assists for 16 points with 38 penalty minutes in 52 games with the Kings this season.

"I don't think it was any secret that Calgary was interested, but it was really about timing and finding a fit," said Lombardi. "There was certainly interest from other teams but I think this was the best deal for us."

The 6-2, 197-pound native of Potsdam, New York, was signed by the Kings as an unrestricted free agent on July 6, 2004, after playing for the Flames in the previous three-plus seasons.

"I know Craig, from talking to him, is appreciative that he's going back to Calgary," said Lombardi.

When the trade went down, Conroy had played in 739 career regular season NHL games with the Kings, Flames, St. Louis Blues and Montreal Canadiens, scoring 145 goals with 277 assists for 422 points and 453 penalty minutes.

In 62 NHL playoff games with the Flames and the Blues, Conroy has nine goals and 16 assists for 25 points with 36 penalty minutes.

"Craig Conroy is a good player," said Flames General Manager Darryl Sutter. "He's a proven, veteran player with intangibles."

"I think there has been something missing from our team, to be honest," added Sutter. "I think that this will alleviate some of the attention that Daymond Langkow gets."

Conroy's best season was in 2001-02 with the Flames, when he played on a line with Flames star forward Jarome Iginla. That season, Conroy scored 27 goals and contributed 48 assists for 75 points.

Conroy is earning $2,394,000 this season.

Lundmark, 26, played in 39 games with the Flames this season, contributing four assists with 31 penalty minutes.

"I thought Jamie played well for me last year," said Sutter. "For some reason, that wasn't happening this year. I told him if he wasn't playing regular here I would try to find him a place where he could play regularly."

The 6-0, 195-pound native of Edmonton, Alberta had played in 203 career regular season NHL games with the Flames, Phoenix Coyotes and New York Rangers, scoring twenty goals and adding 42 assists for 62 points with 142 penalty minutes.

In four playoff games with the Flames, Lundmark has one assist. He was selected by the Rangers in the first round (ninth overall) of the 1999 NHL Entry Draft.

Lundmark is earning $600,000 this season. He has scored two goals in two games since the trade.

IMPROVING IN GOAL?

Goaltending has been a huge problem for the Kings all season long. Dan Cloutier, who was supposed to be their number one netminder was a sieve from the start and never improved before suffering a season- ending hip injury in late December.

Backup goalie Mathieu Garon has been far better, but has suffered groin and finger injuries and has missed 21 games this season.

And when both were on the shelf, the Kings were forced to call up two young goalies, Barry Brust and Yutaka Fukufuji, from the Manchester Monarchs of the American Hockey League (Kings' primary minor league affiliate), and both showed that they were not yet ready for the NHL, as they played poorly.

In a move to shore up the goaltending, the Kings claimed veteran goaltender Sean Burke off of re-entry waivers on January 18 from the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Burke came in and immediately settled things down in goal for the Kings with some solid play.

In six games, Burke is 2-2-1 with a 2.43 goals-against average, a . 929 save percentage and one shutout.

Now with a logjam in goal, Brust was sent back to Manchester on January 20 after a poor outing against the St. Louis Blues at Staples Center the night before, leaving Fukufuji as the backup.

Sources close to the Kings reported that Crawford was very angry with Brust following the game.

"We're keeping two goalies, and I will keep Fukufuji," Kings head coach Marc Crawford said after the game. "Brust will be heading down."

"Fukufuji has deserved to be here more than the other guy has," said Crawford. "He's a real good kid, a hard-working kid. It's a great break for Yutaka. I thought he came in tonight, and didn't get a lot of work [early], and they ended up getting a great chance on him for his first save."

"In the third period, he did some good things. He made some saves and looked like a goalie. That's all we've asked of our guys--to keep doing the right things and keep trying to progress."

Fukufuji, who made NHL history by becoming the first player born in Japan to dress for an NHL game, to play in an NHL game, and to start in an NHL game, was thrilled to be up with the big club, even though he knew that it's just a temporary move.

"It's really good, I'm having fun," he said after the game. "This is my dream. I started watching NHL games when I was nine or ten years old, but I'm here now. It's awesome."

But it obviously has not been an easy adjustment.

"The game is so fast up here, so much more speed," Fukufuji explained. "Passing, shooting, skating--everything is so much faster than in the AHL or ECHL. And I didn't get to practice much here, just two or three times."

Fukufuji did not learn that he would be staying with the Kings instead of Brust until well after the game on January 18 had ended. But he was clearly excited when he learned the news, giving a thumbs- up to the throng of Japanese journalists who were on hand to cover the game.

Fukufuji even pumped his fist once upon hearing the news.

"I'm still here, so I'm going to try to do my best," he said. "I just want to step up every day, get better every day. I want to be here. It's more professional here, it's a higher level. If I can play here, I'll get better."

But that would be the last time Fukufuji would play for the Kings, at least for now, as he was assigned back to the Reading Royals of the ECHL on February 2, the day that Garon was activated off of injured reserve.

Fukufuji is expected to compete for the number one job at Reading and will get more playing time in Reading than he would at Manchester behind Jason LaBarbera, who is the number three goalie on the Kings' depth chart.

Despite the poor play of Brust and Fukufuji while with the Kings, no one should be blaming them. After all, they were playing behind a team that has not exactly been lighting up the league defensively and to top it off, they clearly were not ready for the NHL.

"Let's face it, in fairness to the kids that are playing for us right now, they're just not NHL goalies," Lombardi told the Canadian Press. "It's not fair to Brust or Fukufuji, they're not ready for this. It's not their fault."

Garon was activated from injured reserve on February 2, and joined the Kings on their current five-game road trip that started with a 7-0 blowout win at Florida. Burke got the start while Garon backed up.

The shutout was Burke's 38th in his NHL career, his last coming on April 8, 2006, when he shutout the Pittsburgh Penguins while playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

KOPITAR STRUGGLING?

Rookie sensation Anze Kopitar has gotten a good deal of attention around the league because of his skill, size and strength. He has shown that he has the talent and maturity to be an offensive threat on every shift, and to be responsible in his own end.

Kopitar is generally considered to be the closest contender to Pittsburgh Penguins rookie phenom Evgeni Malkin for the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL's Rookie of the Year. But at this point in the season, it is starting to look like Malkin, who was a big favorite going into the season to begin with, just might runaway with the trophy because Kopitar's game seems to be slipping just a bit.

Through the Kings first 39 games, Kopitar averaged .897 points-per game. But in their last 15 games, he dropped to .733 points-per game.

Although that is not a huge slide, it is not hard to see that Kopitar is struggling a bit, and fatigue may be a factor.

"Kopitar looks like he's tiring a little, but we're using him a lot," Crawford said after the Kings came up short in a 3-2 win by the Chicago Blackhawks at Staples Center on February 1. "We're going to have to really be careful with him, make sure he keeps up good habits and maybe play a little bit more of a controlled game."

"He wants to do so much," Crawford added. "You love to see that, but you don't want to see it at the expense of turning away and not stopping up, and not doing the things that are going to make you a great player forever."

But the trick is to get him the rest he needs but not slow down his development.

"We'll stay on him like that, but we have to be honest," said Crawford. "We've used him an awful lot. We've probably played him more than he should have been played right now. But that's a great opportunity for him. He's learning so much."

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KINGS ACQUIRE RIGHT WING JASON WARD, RIGHT WING MARC-ANDRE CLICHÉ

AND CENTER JAN MAREK FROM THE NEW YORK RANGERS IN EXCHANGE FOR FORWARD SEAN AVERY AND LEFT WING JOHN SEYMOUR

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Kings have acquired right wing Jason Ward, right wing Marc-Andre Cliché and center Jan Marek from the New York Rangers in exchange for forward Sean Avery and left wing John Seymour, Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi announced today.

Lombardi is scheduled to participate in a media conference call today at 4 p.m. (PT). To access the call, dial 1-800-857-5485 (code is LA KINGS).

Ward, 27, has played in 46 games this season for the Rangers and has 10 points (4-6=10) and 26 penalty minutes. The 6-2, 205-pound native of Chapleau, Ontario, has played in 232 career NHL regular season games with the Rangers and Montreal, and has 58 points (24-34=58) and 113 penalty minutes. Ward, who was originally selected by Montreal in first-round (11th overall) of the 1997 NHL Entry Draft, signed with the Rangers as an unrestricted free agent on August 4, 2005.

Cliché, 19, has played in 35 games this season for Lewiston of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and has 36 points (15-21=36) and 30 penalty minutes. The 6-1, 185-pound native of Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, was originally selected by the Rangers in the second-round (56th overall) of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. He has played the last two seasons with Lewiston, including the 2005-06 season when he had 82 points (37-45=82) as he ranked second on the team in all three offensive categories. Cliché also last season led Lewiston in game-winning goals with eight and he tied for the team lead in power play goals with 22, and he recently earned a gold medal with Team Canada at the 2007 World Juniors in Sweden.

Marek, 27, has played in 42 games this season for Magnitogorsk of the Russian Hockey League and has 43 points (17-26=43). The 5-10, 185-pound native of Jindrichuv Hradec, Czech Republic, was originally selected by the Rangers in the eighth-round (243rd overall) of the 2003 NHL Entry Draft. He has played the last two seasons with HC Sparta Praha, including the 2005-06 season when he had 54 points (22-32=54) to lead the Czech Extraliga in points and tied for second in the league with 32 assists. He also led his team last season in plus-minus with a plus-25 and his 22 goals ranked second on the club.

Avery, 26, played in 55 games with the Kings this season and had 28 points (10-18=28) and 116 penalty minutes. The 5-9, 185-pound native of Pickering, Ontario, was acquired by the Kings on March 11, 2003, from Detroit as part of a multi-player trade. In 293 career regular season NHL games with the Kings and Detroit, Avery has 114 points (42-72=114) and 855 penalty minutes.

Seymour, 19, played in 34 games with Brampton of the Ontario Hockey League this season and had six points (1-5=6) and 29 penalty minutes. He was originally selected by the Kings in the seventh-round (226th overall) of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft.