Los Angeles Times-
Coming out of different news sources, it appears that the Los Angeles Kings have made as much as five trades in the past few days. Pending league approval that the trades will go through, GM Derek Harland is sure proving that he is going to do all he can to make this team into a contender as soon as possible.
" When I took the job, I promised I would be very active with trades and free agent signings. Obviously I have not gotten to the latter yet but I have made 5 trades so far, I will confirm that. "
When asked if he could reveal the trades he said I will give you guys a little story to write up on and went he on telling the story.
" I am not going to be a GM who likes to keep things a secret, that is not me. I want to let it be known and make a buzz around the league. So I will tell you. I have traded Chad Kilger for Martin Skoula, and acquired Rem Murray for a late pick in the entry draft this year. Now that is not much but I made sure I would make some big acquisitions. My next trade was trading Christoph Schubert. We really liked the kid but when we found out the return we could get for a role player we could not pass. The team received Hannu Toivonen AND a middle of the draft pick. This is really going to help our goaltending situation in the future. But we wanted to help out the goaltending situation now so we got Martin Gerber for a package involving Barret Jackman. I will officially state now, unless we move any of these goalies I will not be looking for goalies in the free agent market. And my final deal I received Donald Brashear, Aaron Miller and cash for a couple of high picks in the '08 draft. This may be the deal I will be critised the most for but I am willing to take it. All in all, we are ready to make the next step and I wanted to let the league know what has been going on in the Kings household lately. "
This is all pending league approval of course but assuming this all goes through, we are going to be seeing a lot of change throughout LA. And perhaps their biggest problem was goaltending, but now that just may turn out to be one of their strongest points with Gerber, Toivonen, Caron and Hedberg. It is safe to say that their main goal in free agency will be forwards but Harland has been full of surprises so far.