From The Los Angeles Daily News:
KINGS AT THE COMBINE
Rich Hammond, INSIDE THE KINGS, Daily News blogs/insidesocal.com, June 3, 2009
The Kings took a staff of five, led by Dean Lombardi, to last week's draft combine in Toronto, and Lombardi said the staff conducted roughly 60 interviews during the week. Prospects also underwent standardized physical testing, and Lombardi said the Kings talked to some prospects two or three times.
Helene Elliott of the L.A. Times talked to one of them, Evander Kane, about his thoughts, and I got a little insight from Lombardi about what he thought of the week...
LOMBARDI: ``As far as the interviews go, you're mostly just confirming or denying the things you should be finding out during the year. It's hard to gauge how much stock you should put in the interviews. Some of those kids are really beat up, because by the time you get to them, they might already have done 27 or 28 interviews. It's still a worthy process, but you still have to do most of your work during the season. It helps you narrow the field a little bit.''
I asked Lombardi if, given the makeup of the Kings' roster and prospect pool, he would definitely be taking a forward at No. 5 if the Kings keep the pick.
LOMBARDI: ``No, you've still got to go with the best player. Now, if your layers are pretty much the same, you might lean toward what you don't have. You want to get the most value out of that slot. You're probably right in saying that the draft, after Hedman and a couple other guys, does trend a little more toward forwards. If you're in that top layer and (a few players) are really close, we'll probably look toward a forward.''
As an aside, and this comes from nothing but my own intuition and opinion, I still think the Kings are likely to trade the pick.
Lombardi made another vague reference to a trade during our conversation, and the fact that he's talking about publicly about trading the pick -- something he never did in the previous years -- is a decent indicator to me.