LA Kings: Top five Stanley Cup-contention trades
By Ryan Cowley
LA Kings Trade Lubomir Visnovsky for Jarret Stoll and Matt Greene
When your team has had a constant for seven years, it is admittedly difficult to part ways.
That was the case in 2008 when the LA Kings traded Lubomir Visnovsky to the Edmonton Oilers.
GM Dean Lombardi was on a mission to turn the Kings into a serious contender. Yet, while seeing a fan favorite like Visnovsky may have been a tough pill to swallow, seeing the players who came from Edmonton in return definitely helped ease the pain.
In exchange for Visnovsky, the Kings acquired Jarret Stoll and Matt Greene.
For Stoll, he was a consistent offensive threat. As for Greene, he was as fearless as they came, using his 6-foot-3, 230-pound frame to his advantage.
Greene had a knack for dishing out heavy hits while literally laying it all out of the line to block a shot; Stoll, meanwhile, was more than reliable offensively. In fact, his career-high 68 points in 2005-06 helped the Oilers made an unexpected run to the Stanley Cup Final — to Game 7, no less.
Both Stoll and Greene wound up to be two of the more significant pieces to the Kings’ championship puzzle, if you will, in both 2012 and 2014. Stoll even topped one series off with an overtime-winning goal to cap off an opening-round upset of the President’s Trophy-winning Vancouver Canucks in 2012.
If the on-ice contributions of Greene and Stoll weren’t enough, both have remained with the organization following their retirements, with Stoll being involved with the development of the Kings future.
It was tough to see Visnovsky leave, of course, but in hindsight, it was worth it.