The season for the Los Angeles Kings ended less than two weeks ago but they can't waste any time this offseason. For Luc Robitaille, the focus right now is to find a new general manager with the announcement that Rob Blake would not be back.
While that process is going on, Robitaille did say that the Kings would not be waiting on the new general manager to begin negotiations with some of the players set to be free agents this season. During his press conference, he mentioned three players and the likely suspicion is that those three would be Vladislav Gavrikov, Andrei Kuzmenko and Tanner Jeannot.
However, those aren't the only three and in fact there are 11 unrestricted free agents the Kings have this offseason. Let's go through each of those players and make some early predictions on who might be back and not.
Vladislav Gavrikov
Without question, the biggest free agent the Los Angeles Kings have is defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov. He is not only the Kings' top priority but might be the best defenseman set to be a free agent this offseason.
Gavrikov is coming off an excellent season where he took on a bigger role with the injury to Drew Doughty. He finished with a career-high average time on ice of 23:05 and a +/- of +26.
The Kings have reportedly been talking an extension with Gavrikov for a few weeks now, and a deal hasn't gotten done. After some recent deals around the NHL for defensemen, Gavrikov might be too expensive for the Kings to retain and it is a situation where I could see him leaving in free agency.