Ladies And Gentlemen, Your 2008-2009 L.A. Kings

The final roster was announced, just as the team struck a 3-year deal with preseason holdout Patrick O'Sullivan. Sully will average about to $2.95 million dollars a season but gets a bigger, $4 million chunk this year to help the Kings out with their (excess) cash budget. Not the big 6-year deal they made to lock in Dustin Brown, but they have him up through his age 26 season, which should be some explosive years of development.


Adds The Battle Of California:

By the time O'Sullivan's deal is up, rookies like Doughty, Moller and Simmonds will be up as well. Some people may think that's a bad idea, but I actually prefer because it allows the GM to make decisions all at once and not get cornered by previous deals. I don't know when O'Sullivan will be in game shape or on what line he'll play on, but hopefully he'll be ready to go sooner rather than later. He gives the Kings a lot of different options because he can play all three positions and can line up on the power play and penalty kill. I imagine the Kings will work him in slowly and then replace Moller with O'Sullivan when Moller has to go back to Junior. Not to toot my own horn, but I said before camp that I liked a Moulson-Kopitar-Brown line with a Frolov-Stoll-O'Sullivan line, and it seems we might get just that. Toot.

What I like most about this year's team is that it not only has it kept together the talented core, it got bigger and younger. They're still not slated for much success in the team reviews, but every sportswriter who says that is also admiting how they are on the cusp of being a real contention team.


FORWARDS
Derek Armstrong / Brian Boyle / Dustin Brown / Kyle Calder / Marc-Andre Cliche / Rich Clune / Alexander Frolov / Michal Handzus / Raitis Ivanans / Anze Kopitar / Oscar Moller / Matt Moulson / Patrick O'Sullivan / Brad Richardson / Wayne Simmonds / Jarret Stoll / John Zeiler


DEFENSEMEN
Drew Doughty / Denis Gauthier Jr. / Matt Greene / Peter Harrold / Jack Johnson / Sean O'Donnell / Tom Preissing


GOALIES
Erik Ersberg / Jason LaBarbera


Opening night is this Sunday. Toot.