MARCH 8, 2007 -- LOS ANGELES -- A little more than a week after the Los Angeles Kings traded away veteran defenseman Mattias Norstrom and Brent Sopel, many who follow the Kings seem to think they are just running the franchise into the ground, making the team worse, not better.

They contend that the Kings are once again just spinning their wheels, continuing their 39-year journey down Mediocrity Road, a path that leads nowhere.

Without question, the naysayers do have history on their side. The Kings are certainly a franchise known for making more than their share of bad decisions over their nearly forty-year history.

We will refrain from going into detail here to spare you (and us) the pain of reliving all that, but suffice it to say that the Kings have made quite a few monumental blunders over the years that have hurt them dearly. So much so that they would likely have had much greater success--maybe even winning the Stanley Cup before now.

As such, when the naysayers point to the Kings' history to back up their claims about the franchise continuing down the same 'ol path leading nowhere, it is understandable, to say the least.

But this time, perhaps things will be different. Indeed, for the first time in the history of the franchise, there is real evidence that the Kings are not heading down that road and instead, are moving in the opposite direction.

In fact, the Kings are doing something they have only talked about earlier in their history.

The Kings are, for the first time in their history, rebuilding from the ground up.

The process began last June when the Kings traded forward Pavol Demitra to Minnesota in exchange for young forward Patrick O'Sullivan and a first round pick in the 2006 draft that the Kings used to select center prospect Trevor Lewis.

And when you look at the trade that gave the Kings the rights to stud defenseman prospect Jack Johnson, to the trades that dealt away veteran players such as Craig Conroy, Sean Avery and now Sopel and Norstrom, for younger players and more importantly, 2007 and 2008 draft picks, it becomes very obvious that the Kings are indeed in full rebuild mode.

In the earlier history of the franchise, especially since the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) took over as owners, the Kings have given a lot of lip service to rebuilding.

But the rebuilding never happened. Instead, they either continued to trade away first round draft picks for old, washed-up former stars who were on the very last legs of their careers, or they went after big-name free agents who were rarely effective and were nowhere close to being worth their usually large salaries.

To be sure, they certainly did not help make the Kings a consistent winner.

All that changed when AEG hired Dean Lombardi to be the Kings President/General Manager last April.

Indeed, the core of the team is no longer made up of older veterans in the twilight of their careers. Rather, young players such as Michael Cammalleri, Alexander Frolov and Anze Kopitar comprise the core that Lombardi plans to build a winner around.

The older veterans that are still around, such as $6 million/year defenseman Rob Blake, provide veteran leadership and set an example for the younger players to learn from. But they certainly are not part of the core.

By the time Lombardi's rebuilding will begin to pay off, chances are that veterans like Blake will be gone, either due to retirement or because they will be traded, perhaps packaged with prospects and draft picks in exchange for top-tier younger talent.

To be sure, it is those younger players and draft picks that are the key to the rebuilding effort. But the naysayers point once again to the Kings history and to how poorly they have drafted over the years.

And if you look at the Kings' draft picks over their history, the naysayers would be right once again. But what Lombardi has done through his recent trades belies all that.

With the exception of the disastrous deal that brought goaltender Dan Cloutier to the Kings, their trades since September have brought young prospects or draft picks in return.

The most notable prized prospect is the aforementioned Jack Johnson, who is expected to sign with the Kings after leaving the University of Michigan either this year or next year. Johnson is expected to be a mainstay on the Kings' blue line for quite some time and will be part of the young core they build around.

But it is draft picks where the Kings' rebuilding efforts are most obvious, as they have stockpiled a whopping 21 picks in the next two drafts, ten in 2007 and eleven in 2008.

In the 2007 draft, the Kings will have one first round selection, two second round picks, one pick in the third and fourth rounds, two selections in the fifth round, one in the sixth round and two in the seventh round.

Once again, the naysayers point to the numerous reports stating that the 2007 draft is a very weak one as proof that the Kings are, as usual, hurtling into oblivion.

Sorry. Guess again.

Lombardi has wisely positioned himself with those eleven picks in the 2008 draft, which is generally thought to be much, much stronger in terms of solid prospects. Indeed, the Kings will have two selections in each of the first three rounds in 2008, along with three picks in the fourth round and one selection each in the sixth and seventh rounds.

Assuming that Lombardi and his scouting staff are on the ball and have done their homework, one has to think the Kings will nab a handful of prospects that should become solid players for them down the road, and that Lombardi will be able to parlay some of his prospects and draft picks into better players in trades.

With the 2007 draft coming up on June 22-23 in Columbus, it will not be long before we will be able to see more of what Lombardi's grand rebuilding scheme is. It is likely that the Kings will be involved in at least one draft-day trade, and combined with their draft selections, we should be able to get a stronger read on where the Kings are headed and how long it might take them to get there.

The only thing left for the naysayers to point to is whether or not AEG will get cold feet about their revenues. After all, attendance is down this year and often times, there are a load of empty seats at the cavernous Staples Center.

Will the decline in attendance and the lower revenues that go with it make AEG pull the plug on rebuilding? Will they instead order Lombardi to do an about-face and return the Kings to what has never worked for them--bringing in a few talented but expensive free agents who would put butts in seats but not help the Kings become a consistent winner?

Given AEG's poor track record in this regard (once again, we will spare you the details), that is entirely possible. As such, no one can say the naysayers are wrong just yet.

But for now, things are looking up long-term for the Kings--they appear to be moving in a direction that should give everyone who has followed this team a reason to be at least somewhat optimistic about the future.

See also Kings Notes

Gann Matsuda is a Los Angeles native and has followed the Los Angeles Kings since 1973. His days covering the Kings began in the mid-80's when he wrote game stories and news and notes pieces on various online services (GEnie, National Videotex Network and eWorld), before moving to e-mail lists and the World Wide Web. He has been the news editor for the Online Kingdom (http://www.kingshockey.com) since 1995, and has also covered professional hockey players of Japanese descent for the Rafu Shimpo (Los Angeles Japanese Daily News) since  2001.

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