Kings Must Learn From Past Development Mistakes and Successes

Player development is a complicated thing. There's no one right answer, but there are ways to maximize your young talent and ways to minimize them.

There's always risk involved but the high-risk, high-reward option is one that the Los Angeles Kings front office has only recently been willing to dabble with.

The low-risk, low-reward option is sticking your prospects in the bottom six and letting them play a role that redefines and reduces their skill set. A first-round draft pick is rarely drafted to become the best third—and fourth-line winger or center in the league. Even players who become that, see Trevor Lewis, aren't drafted with that in mind.

Top prospects should be players in the top six. It's just that simple. The Kings have made plenty of mistakes under the Rob Blake and Luc Robitaille, and one of them has been playing their top-end prospects in the bottom six.

Rasmus Kupari was and is a talented, speedy forward with size. He was a first-round draft pick and was buried in the Kings' bottom six. He gained trust over time and ended up as a penalty killer while trying to learn the center role at the NHL level.

The young Finn showed flashes of brilliance, but there were also lapses where he looked to be skating faster than his ability to process the game. The first-round draft pick was caved in during the playoffs, providing the Kings with a lack of depth they had been coveting to get through past round one. The newfound Jet could not breach the first round with his new team.

Then there's Arthur Kaliyev. Kaliyev became the best goal-scoring talent the organization had drafted since Tyler Toffoli, except there was exceptionally more hype about his goal-scoring ability. Kaliyev dominated the OHL in his draft and D+1 seasons. He also was fortunate to get the opportunity to play in the AHL underage through the COVID-19 playing loophole.

He scored on his debut in the NHL and looked to be the future top-line scoring winger of the future. But with the vast majority of his time spent in the bottom six, particularly the fourth line, he floundered. Kaliyev currently has 35 goals in 188 games. Seventeen of those goals came via the power play.

Kaliyev never got full-time status in the top six. His shot and talent kept him as a fixture in the power play unit alone, until last season when the relationship between player and team reached a boiling point.

His ability to put the puck in the back of the net was never in question. It was his defensive warts. They knew that when drafting him, they took that risk and forced him into a role that highlighted those warts and made little use of his strengths.

Kaliyev started the season last year with Phillip Danualt and Trevor Moore and produced exceptionally well to get the year going (2-3-5 +4 in 7 GP). He was usurped, and he is now in no man's land with the organization.

There's no guarantee prospects like Kupari or Kaliyev would have turned out differently had they been given more opportunities in the top six.

However, the plan shouldn't be to develop top players into bottom six grinders. You should let those players fall into those roles, not make it their ceiling.

The Adrian Kempe Example:

Adrian Kempe is a great example of both sides of development.

He was the highest draft pick in the post-cup-winning era under Lombardi (2014). He spent the early years of his career playing in the bottom six, at center and wing. His first-year thrust onto the top line, he breaks out for 35 goals. The season after that, 41 goals. The most recent season? Led the team in points with 75, his most complete season.

If the Kings want to chalk that up to "slow marinating," I don't buy it. Marinating can actually over-saturate the meat.

Kempe himself has talked about how important the opportunity to get consistent minutes in the top six has been to his breakout.

You see the same with someone like Quinton Byfield. Did his season and change in the bottom six really lead to his breakout campaign last season? Or was it finally getting the usage his talent warrants?

The old ways of doing things for this franchise have reached a breaking point, as prospect depth has plummeted back to post-Lombardi lows.

Alex Turcotte and Akil Thomas are still young players riding the fine line toward their careers as top nine and top six forwards. They can't bottom out playing inferior roles to what they were designed to be, designed to get the most out of.  To a lesser extent, the concern should even be for a player like Liam Greentree, who was just freshly drafted. Joining an organization that has throughout blocked its youth is a troublesome outlook for a young prospect.

Stick to what works. Develop in the top six or devolve in the bottom six.