Quoting: tryger
If we had Laine his offense would be his defense the way he moves, but yeah I get your point. Also, I don't hate the idea of Andersson's conservative play as a countermeasure against Kaliyev with Vilardi holding them together, however, as you have it I believe that will be our third line for at least the next few years until Kopitars game has really lost a step. I think I like one of the top prospects moving to Center as you have it either Turcotte or Vilardi works for me, but Simontaival, Kaliyev, Andersson, Fagemo all are projected as top-9 wingers and I'm not sure any of them can become that top wing guy, I think that we still have areas of weakness that we will hopefully address at this next draft: our top line winger (unless Kupari somehow does it), our goalie of the future, and our number one defenseman to take the reigns from Doughty. But what you have listed above is definitely a playoff team.
The idea of "top line player" is ridiculous if you ask me. Is Kapanen a top line player? Is Staal a top line player? Is Iafallo a top line player? If you have 2 elite players on the same line, assuming Byfield and Turcotte pan out as expected. Simontaival has top 6 potential. He needs a lot of development first, but if he can become a 50 point player he certainly would gell well with Turcotte and Byfield.
Petersen is the Kings goalie of the future and they have 2 goalies in the pipeline who could become starters in Ingham and Parik.
I'm not saying that Kaliyev is or will be as good as Laine, but we are talking about one dimensional players the only difference is Laine is a 40 goal scorer. Kaliyev is expected to be a 30 goal scorer. That's a 10 goal difference and Kaliyev is and will be cheaper than Laine.
I agree on the defenseman though, I really think the Kings need to draft Brandt Clarke next year and should be taking bad contracts for 1sts to have ammunition in case they have to trade up for him. Clarke reminds me so much of Doughty.
As far as the Andersson Vilardi Kaliyev line, that won't be a line for awhile.
My top 9 projection over the next 5 years looks like this:
20-21
Iafallo Kopitar Brown
Kempe Vilardi Frk
Grundstrom JAD Carter
21-22
Turcotte Kopitar Brown
Andersson Vilardi Frk
Kempe Byfield Carter
22-23
Turcotte Kopitar Brown
Andersson Byfield Vilardi
Kempe Madden Kaliyev
23-24
Turcotte Byfield Vilardi
Andersson Kopitar Kaliyev
Kempe Madden Brown
24-25
Turcotte Byfield Simontaival
Andersson Vilardi Kaliyev
Kempe Kopitar Brown
I think with 1 season in the SHL and 3 seasons in the AHL I think Simontaival will have a really good development journey and roll right into the top 6. I also think Madden will be traded once Kopitar gets bumped to the 3rd line.