This post was originally published on this site.
So, that’s that.
The Kings made a move before the NHL’s holiday roster freeze, as they acquired a second-round draft pick in the 2026 NHL Draft in exchange for forward Phillip Danault.
Ken Holland spoke to the local media for around 20 minutes immediately following the trade. I have not seen the full video posted yet but I will embed it in here once it is. My audio isn’t embeddable, since I was recording off a computer, so we’ll have to wait for the video. For now, I’ll do my best here to hit the higher-level takeaways.
From the sounds of it, Holland said he spoke with somewhere between half and two thirds of the general managers in the NHL around this particular trade. So, let’s say 16-24, somewhere in that range? Lots of conversations that ultimately led to tonight’s trade.
“Ultimately, we felt like the deal today was our best deal.”
Holland admitted that his preference would have been to find an NHL roster player, as opposed to a draft pick, but that trade was not on the table. He certainly did not rule out using this pick or other assets to acquire NHL talent down the road, though it does not sound as though another move is imminent, either.
“We’ve got cap space, we’ve got another draft pick, we’re going to monitor here on a regular basis to see if we can do something.”
Holland said that throughout the process of looking at a trade for Danault, he spoke with so many other GM’s that he’s gotten a good feel of where teams are at right now. With the tightness in the standings, he’s felt there’s a lot of teams perhaps not wanting to make moves. He didn’t say this, I’m adding it in, but the more teams that fancy themselves as playoff hopefuls, the more difficult and more expensive trades will become. The standings are beginning to loosen up a bit, especially at the bottom, as teams begin to fall out of the race a bit. Perhaps that either gets the market going, or lowers the cost of doing so.
Holland is also planning to head to the World Juniors later this month and is planning to have additional conversations there with several other GM’s expected to attend. The NHL is on a roster freeze anyways, so nothing can be done right now anyways. The freeze lifts on December 28, when teams can make moves again.
So, while there was a soft deadline before the Kings play their next three games, there was no ultimatum, per Holland, to get a deal done before the roster freeze kicked in tonight at 9 PM Pacific.
From how Holland detailed it, Danault missed the games against Calgary, Dallas and Florida with the flu. The Kings opted not to fly him to Tampa Bay for that game against the Lightning, as they had done with Quinton Byfield for the Panthers game. Holland said that he spoke with Danault himself and with Danault’s agent, Allan Walsh, and made the determination that they would not fly Danault into Tampa Bay for the one game, but since there were active trade discussions, they would let the situation play out and see what came of it. From those conversations, it became clear that from Danault’s side, he would be open to being moved.
Had a trade not been found today, Danault would have practiced with the Kings tomorrow and would have played on Monday against Columbus. So, there was no refusal by the player to play, nor was the team holding him out for the games that would have come during the freeze. If today’s trade did not unfold, the Kings would have proceeded with Danault as a part of the group and then resumed looking for a trade after the freeze.
“I talked to Allan Walsh and I said, the player knows that you’re trying to find a another opportunity for him, it didn’t make a lot of sense for him to jump out there and fly, so we left Phil at home. I said if we’re not able to find a trade by today, he was going to be at practice tomorrow and get him ready for the games on Monday and Tuesday. If we could find a deal, then he would move on to another opportunity. It could have gone both ways, but as it turned out, we did the deal tonight.”
As to the why, a lot of it came down to icetime from the player’s side.
Danault’s time on ice is down about 80 seconds per game this season from last season, which was down from seasons prior. He played over 18 minutes per game in his first three seasons with the Kings and this year, he’s been just over 16. Danault had seen his role reduced on special teams this season as well, with Holland pointing to Danault’s “struggle” offensively, with no goals and five assists to this point.
“This was a decision that needed [to be made], that I made. In talking to Allan Walsh, in talking to Phil, his role changed and it’s been a struggle……it’s been a struggle here offensively for Phil. It’s about Christmas here and he has no goals and five assists. We found a trading partner here that I think is going to be good for Phil, he gets to go back to a city where he had a lot of success……it gives him a fresh opportunity.”
In terms of filling the role, the three names brought up were Alex Turcotte, Alex Laferriere and Samuel Helenius.
For now, while Holland reinforced that Hiller will make final lineup decisions, it sounds as if Turcotte will get a crack at being the third-line center and Helenius will be the fourth-line center, while Laferriere remains on the wing, right now on the first line with Kopitar and Kempe. Early returns on Kuzmenko/Turcotte/Moore as a third line were very positive, they controlled the game more so than any other Kings trio against Florida and Tampa Bay. Will get more on Turcotte specifically this weekend, but really a focus on all three to come. More thoughts HERE from when the trade broke.
Will update this in the morning with the full video from Holland’s availabilty.