Kings general manager Rob Blake steps down in wake of latest playoff ouster
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The Kings and long-embattled general manager Rob Blake have mutually agreed to part ways, the team announced Monday, four days after the team’s fourth consecutive first-round playoff loss to the Edmonton Oilers.
“On behalf of the entire organization, I would like to thank Rob for his dedication to the L.A. Kings and the passion he brought to the role,” president Luc Robitaille said in a statement. “Reaching this understanding wasn’t easy and I appreciate Rob’s partnership in always working toward what is best for the Kings.
“Rob deserves a great deal of credit and respect for elevating us to where we are today. He has been an important part of the Kings and will always be appreciated for what he has meant to this franchise.”
The search for a new general manager will begin immediately, the Kings said.
The Kings showed great promise entering their first-round playoff series against nemesis Edmonton, but a few key miscues sealed the Oilers’ series win.
Speaking to reporters Monday, Kings coach Jim Hiller said he hadn’t talked with Robitaille yet regarding his future. Hiller, 55, signed a three-year contract with the Kings last May.
Robitaille is scheduled to to speak Tuesday about the coaching situation and the search for a new general manager.
After taking over on an interim basis for Todd McLellan midway through the 2023-24 season, Hiller rallied the Kings to a playoff berth. He had success in his first full regular season as coach but has taken much of the blame for the team’s early postseason exit.
Blake, 55, was a Hall of Fame defenseman whose 20-year NHL playing career included two stints with the Kings. He spent several of those seasons playing alongside Robitaille. He was brought back to the Kings as assistant general manager ahead of the 2013-14 season, which ended with the team winning its second Stanley Cup.
Less than four years later the team fired general manager Dean Lombardi, the architect of its two Stanley Cup champions, and promoted Blake, who quickly went about expanding the team’s player-development program, adding strength and conditioning coaches, a sports dietitian, a psychologist and other specialists, making it one of the most robust in the NHL.
Yet the Kings haven’t won a playoff series since.
This spring’s early exit from the postseason may have been the most painful of Blake’s team as general manager. The team tied franchise records for wins (48) and points (105) while breaking the record for home wins (31), giving it home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs. But after dominating the first two games at home, the Kings were swept in the next four.
That extended another franchise record, marking the 11th straight season the Kings have failed to win a postseason series.
Unlike Lombardi, who was frequently visible around the team and available to the media, Blake, who was in the final year of his contract, rarely spoke publicly. Additionally, he has long been a target of fans critical of his roster construction and poor trades, such as the one that brought Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Kings in the summer of 2023 in exchange for Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari, Gabriel Vilardi and a second-round draft pick. Dubois signed a cap-squeezing eight-year, $68-million contract with Blake, then promptly proved to be a bust, setting career lows with 16 goals and 24 assists.
After jumping out to a 2-0 series lead, the Kings lost Game 6 and were eliminated by the Oilers the first round of the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year.
But Blake fixed that last summer, moving Dubois to the Washington Capitals in exchange for goaltender Darcy Kuemper, who had a career season and is one of three finalists for the Vezina Trophy. Blake also made an important deal at the March trade deadline, acquiring forward Andrei Kuzmenko from the Philadelphia Flyers, who also agreed to split the remainder of Kuzmenko’s salary.
The trade immediately improved the Kings’ offense and rescued an impotent power play, helping win 17 of its final 22 games to place second in the Pacific Division, the best finish of Blake’s term as general manager.
But that luck — and Blake’s time with the team — ended in the playoffs.
