For the second straight year, the Los Angeles Kings lost a key part of their defense when Vladislav Gavrikov left in free agency and joined the New York Rangers. The summer before that, though, the Kings would see Matt Roy leave to join the Washington Capitals, and that loss has had a domino effect through the defense that is still felt today.
Roy had developed into being a key part of the Kings' defense and had played almost 350 games in his final five seasons with the team. In those final three seasons, Roy was averaging over 20 points a season and around 20 minutes of ice time per game.
In that final season with the Kings, he was pretty exclusively paired with Vladislav Gavrikov and according to Money Puck, they had the best xGoal% of any defensive pair at 56.2%
What might have happened if the LA Kings were able to keep Matt Roy?
The first thing would be that they wouldn't need to find a replacement for Roy, and that means the Kings wouldn't have signed Joel Edmundson as a free agent. However, this would have created a bit of a crunch on the right side of the defense, especially with the Kings trying to get Brandt Clarke to the NHL.
At this point, the Kings could have tried one of two things, with the first being trying to move someone to the left side, and more than likely that would have been Roy, because a Brandt Clarke - Jordan Spence pair wouldn't work. The other option would be what the Kings actually did this offseason and that was trade Spence.
If they went that route, then they might have still signed Edmundson and could have probably ended up with balanced pairs with Edmundson and Clarke together while Gavrikov and Roy remained a pair.
The question becomes what happens this summer if Roy remained. Would it have been enough to keep Gavrikov in Los Angeles? If that is the case, then the Kings don't go out and sign both Cody Ceci and Brian Dumoulin.
Over the past two offseasons, the Kings have lost some significant talent on their blue line but keeping Matt Roy last summer might have changed all that.