By Shayna Goldman and Eric Duhatschek
Jun 19, 2024
The trade
Kings get: Goalie Darcy Kuemper
Capitals get: Center Pierre-Luc Dubois
Eric Duhatschek: Fresh starts always sound good in theory. Any player can get stale in a certain situation. The chance to move on to a new team, with a new role, under a new coach, with new teammates, can get a player refocused and back on track.
But this trade is going to test the theory to the max.
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Remember, this is fresh start No. 3 for Pierre-Luc Dubois now. He was unhappy in his first home, Columbus, and got traded to Winnipeg. Winnipeg didn’t work out, but the Kings were willing to believe that sunshine and a chance to play in L.A. for a good team with Stanley Cup aspirations would revitalize him. Didn’t happen.
So, Dubois is on the move again. In Washington, he’ll get a chance to play higher up the depth chart than he did with the Kings. In L.A., he was stuck at the No. 3 center spot behind Anze Kopitar and Phillip Danault. Had Dubois played better, he might have been able to work his way up the ladder. But he didn’t. It’s hard not to see his one-and-only year with the Kings as an unmitigated disaster — 40 points in 82 games, zero positive impact on their results.
But Washington has turned its center core over in the last 12 months and now, without Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov, has an opening in the top six. On paper, you might even think Dubois could dislodge Dylan Strome from the No. 1 spot, though that remains to be seen. That’ll be a competition in training camp and presumably, at this point, if Dubois wants to get what was once a promising career back on the rails, he’ll need to be more focused and committed than he was with L.A.
It’s a risk the Capitals were willing to assume, because a) they see Dubois’ pedigree; b) they themselves were in a position to want to move out a player who never met their expectations either. Darcy Kuemper was signed as a UFA two years ago — an offseason in which a lot of bad goalie contracts were handed out. He was coming off a championship with the Colorado Avalanche, where he provided the necessary saves during their 2022 run to the Stanley Cup. He was a solid, stable, reliable goalie for Colorado and then OK in his first year with the Caps. This past season, he ceded the job to Charlie Lindgren. With three more years on the books at $5.25 million for Kuemper, the Capitals knew they couldn’t move off from that money without taking an expensive piece back.
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In effect, it was a positional swap that gives each team help at a position in an area of need. At this stage, the Kings need what Kuemper was able to provide to Colorado, a stabilizing presence in goal. It means they’re moving on from Cam Talbot after one year but have brought back David Rittich to be the 1B. Kuemper will thus get a chance to regain his mojo in L.A. People sometimes forget that Kuemper had a brief but excellent run as Jonathan Quick’s backup in 2017-18 — a 10-1-3 record, a .932 save percentage. The Kings traded him to Arizona at that point because they knew they couldn’t sign him long-term for the dollars he expected.
It’s a swap of two players, coming off underachieving seasons, and needing to be better in 2024-25. Risks are hard to assess, but in the end, what tilts this in L.A.’s favor is they get out from under an enormous financial burden: seven more years of Dubois at an $8.5 million AAV. The Kings gave up a lot to get Dubois from Winnipeg, but that’s a different trade grade. Here, they salvaged something from a bad situation that potentially had the chance to get worse.
Kings grade: B
Capitals grade: C-minus
Shayna Goldman: One-for-one deals just hit different. There is no list of conditions, picks or salary retention. And player for player, Dubois for Kuemper is just a doozy.
It didn’t take long for the Kings to have buyer’s remorse for Dubois — a player they invested heavily in. It wasn’t even a full year ago that Los Angeles flipped Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari and a 2024 second-round pick to Winnipeg for the center.
Dubois hasn’t come close to expectations in Los Angeles, coming off his worst scoring season yet with a 1.86 points per 60. It wasn’t a matter of bad luck or poor on-ice shooting in his minutes, either. Dubois shot the puck less, set up fewer chances with his passing and was less effective on the forecheck which all did little for the Kings’ offensive creation at five-on-five. The bottom-six role didn’t help, but there’s a reason he was demoted in the first place. On top of that, he was a negative defensively relative to his teammates.
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With all that in mind, it makes sense why the Kings wanted to find a way out of that hefty eight-year contract carrying a $8.5 million cap hit. It’s hard to see Dubois rebounding enough to be worth that price, and management likely felt pressure building to make a decision before his no-movement clause takes effect on July 1.
Maybe the Kings think they’re killing two birds with one stone because in return for Dubois they gain cap space they desperately need (with just six forwards and five defensem*n under contract right now) andadd a goaltender. Management ended a bad situation before it could crush them anymore. But is it really a tidy bit of business, considering how much Los Angeles gave up for Dubois in the first place?
Kuemper lost his starting net for a reason in Washington, but he should have more support behind the Kings’ defense. He’s only a year removed from a really strong season in Washington, and he thrived in 2021-22 for the Avalanche. But at 34, can he be the answer for the next three years at $5.25 million a season?
Lindgren earned the starter’s net, so it makes sense why Washington would want to shed Kuemper’s contract. Bringing back a center addresses its biggest area of need, too.
The key here is that the Capitals really aren’t in the thick of their window of contention. They’re stuck in limbo, so they can afford to take on this kind of risk and hope that Dubois bounces back in a top-six capacity. The later years of the contract may sting, but by then, Washington’s big contracts should be off the books. Maybe Dubois can regain some of his value and the Capitals find a way to flip him down the line with retention. Plus, with the team buying CapFriendly, fewer fans can dunk on them for taking on Dubois’ deal.
Kings grade: C-plus
Capitals grade: C-plus
(Top photo of Pierre-Luc Dubois: Ric Tapia / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
