Los Angeles Kings re-sign restricted free agents
The Kings are disappointed that they couldn’t land Ilya Kovalchuk. They went all out for the player, stretching their salary cap as far as they could but still didn’t get him in the end. Nevertheless, that isn’t the end of the world for the LA Kings. There was still more to be done, more players to get their hands on and the Kings General Manager, Dean Lombardi, has been busy doing exactly that.
As a result of those efforts, the Los Angeles Kings were able to sign restricted free agents Richard Clune, Corey Elkins, Marc-Andre Cliche and Trevor Lewis. All four players had been playing for the King’s American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate team Manchester Monarchs. GM Lombardi announced that all four had been offered with one-year deals. The financial details of the contracts for any of them were not made public but their contracts are expected to be in the $600,000 per season range in the National Hockey League (NHL).
The 23-years-old Richard Clune appeared in fourteen games in the NHL for the Kings last season and also played in four playoff games. In his debut season, Clune recorded two assists and was written down for 26 penalty minutes. The 5’10, almost 200 lb Toronto native also won 5 penalty minutes in just four playoff games. Clune spent a majority of the 2009/2010 season with the AHL. He played 44 games for the Manchester Monarchs, scoring 4 goals and another 10 assists for a 14 point AHL season. He was ranked as the second best player for the Manchester Monarchs with 126 AHL penalty minutes.
Trevor Lewis didn’t get enough time on the ice with the Los Angeles Kings and was unable to do anything remarkable in the time he did eventually get. In fact, Lewis wasn’t able to do anything at all with zero goals, zero assists, and zero penalty minutes in the five games that he played. His performance was significantly better in the AHL, though injuries prevented him from making the most of it. In the last season, Lewis played for 23 regular season AHL games in which he scored 5 goals and made two assists for a 7-point season. In addition, he won just 6 penalty minutes in those games. Lewis showed more improvements in the 16 playoff games that he played in the AHL after returning from an upper body injury that cost him most of the regular season. Lewis managed to score 5 goals and 4 assists along with 10 penalty minutes, outshining his regular season total in significantly fewer games and leading his team with 52 hits. His served his entire NHL career with the Kings as Lewis scored a goal and two assists in 11 games that he played for them with no penalty minutes.
The Kings got 1 goal out of Corey Elkins’ 3 games in the NHL. Elkins debuted in the NHL with the Kings and scored his only NHL goal, to date, in his second career game. The majority of the towering 6’3, 215 pounder’s season was spent playing with the Manchester Monarch’s too. After playing in 73 games, he scored more than twice the number of points than Clune scored. His 43 points, 21 goals and 22 assists were the second highest total for any Monarch and the highest among rookies in the club along with being the 10th highest scorer among all AHL rookies.
Marc-Andre Cliche made his NHL debut with the Kings this season which was his only NHL game to date. For the Monarch’s, Cliche was responsible for 11 goals and 14 assists after playing in 66 games. All four players including Cliche, Lewis, Clune and Elkins were an important part of the team that led the Monarchs to the Eastern Conference Finals in this season.
All four are all still young and could grow into central roles for the Kings roster. Understandably, the average King’s fan won’t be following the developments any other than the Kovalchuk’s saga but the little guys are as much a part of the NHL as the celebrities of the sport.
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