Kings set for another rebuilding effort

The most-important day for the Kings' franchise to date -- in the most-important off-season, no less -- will be turned over to team president of business operations, Luc Robitaille, who is making the trip to New York for Monday's NHL draft lottery.

"Why not leave it to a guy named Lucky?" Kings President and General Manager Dean Lombardi said. "You can't lose sending a guy whose nickname is Lucky. He's putting his reputation enormously at risk. If he doesn't win, it would jeopardize 20 years of a nickname."

Hours after the Kings' season-ending 4-3 loss to the Ducks on Saturday afternoon at Staples Center, their fortunes took a downward turn. Tampa Bay lost, 4-1, against Atlanta, giving up three third-period goals. The Lightning finished with 71 points.

So it turned out that the Kings' win Thursday against the Sharks was indeed costly. The Kings also finished with 71 points, but they have one more victory than Tampa Bay, which is the first tiebreaker. Finishing second worst means they won't pick any lower than third in the NHL Entry Draft at Ottawa on June 20-21.

They still could end up with the No. 1 selection after Monday's draft lottery.

That could be the first domino of options: Does Lombardi go with forward Steve Stamkos of the Sarnia Sting or defenseman Drew Doughty of the Guelph Storm?

Then they have to decide whether to make qualifying offers to restricted free agents by June 25 to retain their rights. Among the key restricted free agents are forward Patrick O'Sullivan, who had a breakout season of 22 goals and 53 points, defenseman Peter Harrold and goalie Erik Ersberg.

Unrestricted free agents are defensemen Rob Blake, Jon Klemm and Kevin Dallman and forwards Brian Willsie and Jeff Giuliano. Scott Thornton is one as well but this was billed as his last game in the NHL. It's hard to envision the Kings reconnecting with goalie Dan Cloutier after he torched the organization in an interview with the Vancouver Sun newspaper in March.

"I have no idea. Who knows," he said. "This year has been a roller-coaster year. It's one for the record books what I've gone through. I certainly proved to myself I can still play in this league. I don't know what's going to happen.

"For an organization that keeps saying there's not a whole lot of good goalies in this organization, I think it's one of the better. . . . Maybe I'm not in the plans, who knows. I'm not going to start to worry about what's going to happen."