Kings coping without Jonathan Quick, who is traded again

EL SEGUNDO — Jonathan Quick has been traded. Again.

After spending 18 years with the Kings, the two-time Stanley Cup winner has been a member of three organizations in three days.

The Kings shipped the goalie’s rights to Columbus late Tuesday as part of a package that netted Vladislav Gavrikov and Joonas Korpisalo. That deal was finalized Wednesday.

On Thursday, Quick was sent to one of the Kings’ rivals, the Vegas Golden Knights, in exchange for a 2025 seventh-round draft pick and goalie Michael Hutchinson.

The Kings and Golden Knights will face off one more time this season on April 6 in Vegas. The deal has echoes of when the Kings dealt Martin Jones to Boston, only to see him flipped inside the division to San Jose. While Jones was entering his prime and Quick was winding down his career, this situation seemed even more bizarre given Quick’s longstanding association with the Kings.

“When we look over and we see Quickie in another uniform, or Wayne Gretzky leaves Edmonton and he comes to LA, it’s never normal, it’s not natural, but it happens,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said.

McLellan also pointed out that the Kings and their longest-tenured players, captain Anze Kopitar and top defenseman Drew Doughty, had been through numerous transitions on the ice, behind the bench and in the front office.

“Jeff Carter and Trevor Lewis and Kyle Clifford and Jake Muzzin, you can go on and on, they left at a different time when the team was being torn down a little bit. For me, that would be harder, as a player, because you’re sitting there going like, ‘All my buddies just left, and we don’t have a really good chance of winning for a little while,’” McLellan said.

“Now, we lost a real good teammate and an icon, but, as a player, you may be sitting there going, ‘OK, we have a chance to win, and that responsibility falls on me as an individual and us as teammates.’”

Indeed that’s been the case for the Kings historically. They lamented and took responsibility for the dismissal of former coach Terry Murray in 2011-12 before promptly winning the Stanley Cup under Darryl Sutter that spring. By contrast, a downtrodden, underpowered group of Kings sulked and sunk after Jeff Carter was traded to Pittsburgh near the trade deadline two years ago.

For Kopitar, however, there were neither positive nor negative lessons to glean from prior anguish.

“It gets you every time. After all, we’re human beings and we have feelings, so it’s never fun to see a coach go, a buddy go or a brother go, so I don’t think you learn from it and, like I said, it never gets easier,” Kopitar said.

Kopitar and Doughty opened up about the massive swing of the emotional pendulum postgame Tuesday, when Kopitar poured in four goals as the Kings rallied to topple the Winnipeg Jets in a shootout. Kopitar said he knew it was transparent that the mood of the room no longer drew on the exhilaration of the match but rather the forlorn sensation of losing a pillar of a dynasty.

“That was tough. We were on a super high coming off the ice, then, after the game, Kopi and I found out,” Doughty said. “Right away, it just went all the way down, and that feeling stayed through the last 36 hours.”

Both players emphasized their continued personal relationships with Quick and wished him the best elsewhere.

In medieval times, transitioning from King to Knight would have been considered a major demotion, but both teams are in the throes of a heated competition for the Pacific Division.

Vegas has been without injured starter Robin Lehner since last season. Logan Thompson and Laurent Broissoit are both sidelined, with their timelines for return seemingly extending in recent days. That has left Vegas, who holds a narrow lead atop the Pacific Division, to turn to Adin Hill. In Quick, they acquired a netminder with more postseason experience than all their goalies combined, but a player who has struggled to find his form consistently in recent years, particularly this season, when he’s posted a career-low .876 save percentage.

Related Articles

Entering Thursday’s action, just six points separated all eight teams in the Western Conference playoff picture, leaving both divisional races and the wild-card competition in tight positions. That could produce a Kings-Vegas matchup in the postseason and maybe even the first round, though it’s unclear at this point what role Quick would have during the playoffs.

For his former teammates, it might be a little tougher to switch off friend mode and forge ruthlessly into battle.

“I would love to score on Quickie, but yeah it’ll be tougher to turn that one off,” Doughty said. “But, at the same time, we’re going out there to try and win a game, the same thing he’s trying to do. I’m a little scared of the fire he’s going to have in his belly.”