2. Brian Dumoulin, D (3 years, $4.0M AAV)
The Kings made some head-scratching moves this past offseason that limited the flexibility of the team's blue line for the foreseeable future by signing defensemen Brian Dumoulin and Cody Ceci to multi-year contracts worth at least $4 million in average annual value for each deal.
While Dumoulin's contract isn't as much of an albatross as Ceci's, it still doesn't make it all that much better, especially when considering how much the Kings need another puck-moving defenseman going into this upcoming season. Dumoulin also only has two years remaining on his current contract.
It's insane to me that both Dumoulin and Ceci are paid almost the same base value annually on their current contracts as top-pairing defenseman Mikey Anderson for the Kings (roughly $4 million in AAV).
Dumoulin was tried at times this past season with the second defensive pairing. But it never really saw success for the Kings to have Dumoulin on any other defensive pairing than the third with Ceci this past season.
Last season, Dumoulin ranked second from the bottom in terms of Kings' defensemen in 5-on-5 on-ice expected goals for percentage (per Natural Stat Trick).
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