It’s time for another edition of NHL rumours. The conference finals have started, but a number of teams that have been eliminated are still garnering headlines. These teams did make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. However, they want to go further and not sit on the sidelines. A number of clubs have already made changes to their rosters and to their front office.<\/p>\n
One team that has some things to figure out is the Los Angeles Kings.<\/a>\u00a0This edition of NHL rumours talks about what the new management regime will do with a key defenceman.<\/p>\n All NHL rumours come from the original source and are subject to change.<\/p>\n Rumour: David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period weighed in on what the future may hold<\/a> for Russian defender Vladislav Gavrikov<\/a>. The blueliner is an unrestricted free agent come July 1.<\/em><\/p>\n Analysis:<\/em> The Kings have already made some changes<\/a> this off-season. Rob Blake<\/a> is gone and Ken Holland<\/a> is now the team’s new general manager.<\/a> Blake’s failure to get past the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> has pretty much doomed and there’s no man running the show.<\/p>\n However, Holland inherits an issue that Blake would have likely tried to deal with had he remained at the helm. There was that massive change, but Gavrikov seems like he’s the top priority regardless of who the GM is.<\/p>\n The Russian came over via a deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a>. However, he’s become an important part of the Kings’ lineup. The 29-year-old registered five goals and 30 points, but he meant plenty of the defensive end.<\/p>\n Signing the Yaroslavl, Russia native is something Holland said he wants to do. However, it could come at a hefty price tag.<\/p>\n Pagnotta mentions that a new Gavrikov could come in at over $7 million. The former sixth-round pick in the 2015 NHL Draft currently makes $5.875 million<\/a> and would likely get a nice pay raise from his current deal.<\/p>\n Gavrikov has formed a solid partnership with Jordan Spence<\/a>, who becomes a restricted free agent for the 2026-27 season. Holland likely wants to keep the duo together. However, one wonders what the term and dollar amount will look like.<\/p>\n We could see the Kings maybe push for a five to seven year deal for the lockdown defender. Some think Pagnotta’s assessment of a $7 million-plus deal could be correct. However, Holland is hoping for not such a hefty raise.<\/p>\n There could be bad news according to Frank Seravalli’s projection<\/a> of $7.6 million for seven years. That would be the second-highest average cap projection behind pending Florida Panthers<\/a> UFA Aaron Ekblad<\/a>, who is projected to get seven years at $7.8 million per season.<\/p>\n Los Angeles would love to bring back Andrei Kuzmenko<\/a> on a new deal. However, they have to make sure there’s enough to go around. They also have to make a decision on Tanner Jeannot<\/a> and give Alex Laferriere<\/a> a well-deserved raise.<\/p>\n Holland won’t have time ease into the job as he has to solve this problem. Signing the veteran blueliner will be key to a successful off-season.<\/p>\n Main photo by: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s time for another edition of NHL rumours. The conference finals have started, but a number of teams that have been eliminated are still garnering headlines. These teams did make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. However, they want to go further and not sit on the sidelines. A number of clubs have already made changes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":469058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4547,34,4548,4321],"tags":[7320,571,7166,1566,2399],"class_list":["post-469056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kings","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-rumours","tag-andrei-kuzmenko","tag-ken-holland","tag-los-angeles-kings-rumours","tag-rob-blake","tag-vladislav-gavrikov"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":469059,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469056\/revisions\/469059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}NHL Rumours<\/h2>\n
Update Future of Los Angeles Kings Defenceman<\/h3>\n
What It Means<\/h4>\n