EL SEGUNDO — Jonathan Quick has been traded. Again.
After spending 18 years with the Kings, the two-time Stanley Cup winner has been a member of three organizations in three days.
The Kings shipped the goalie’s rights to Columbus late Tuesday as part of a package that netted Vladislav Gavrikov and Joonas Korpisalo. That deal was finalized Wednesday.
On Thursday, Quick was sent to one of the Kings’ rivals, the Vegas Golden Knights, in exchange for a 2025 seventh-round draft pick and goalie Michael Hutchinson.
The Kings and Golden Knights will face off one more time this season on April 6 in Vegas. The deal has echoes of when the Kings dealt Martin Jones to Boston, only to see him flipped inside the division to San Jose. While Jones was entering his prime and Quick was winding down his career, this situation seemed even more bizarre given Quick’s longstanding association with the Kings.
“When we look over and we see Quickie in another uniform, or Wayne Gretzky leaves Edmonton and he comes to LA, it’s never normal, it’s not natural, but it happens,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said.
McLellan also pointed out that the Kings and their longest-tenured players, captain Anze Kopitar and top defenseman Drew Doughty, had been through numerous transitions on the ice, behind the bench and in the front office.
“Jeff Carter and Trevor Lewis and Kyle Clifford and Jake Muzzin, you can go on and on, they left at a different time when the team was being torn down a little bit. For me, that would be harder, as a player, because you’re sitting there going like, ‘All my buddies just left, and we don’t have a really good chance of winning for a little while,’” McLellan said.
“Now, we lost a real good teammate and an icon, but, as a player, you may be sitting there going, ‘OK, we have a chance to win, and that responsibility falls on me as an individual and us as teammates.’”
Indeed that’s been the case for the Kings historically. They lamented…
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