Quoting: jonh514
Fair enough. Thanks for your perspective sir.
I was thinking that between Doughty, Roy, Durzi, Walker & Clarke - Grans is gonna have a tough time making the team over the next 3-5 years. I'd say all of those guys are ahead of him and that's a tough spot for a prospect who could be NHL-ready in another 1-2 years. He may even request a trade at one point. It's also, in my admittedly inexperienced opinion, bad asset management as they CAN go and get something for him to help their team now or down the road (even if it's not a lateral move at a different position and a similar development timeline).
EDIT: Forgot Spence. Spence is also ahead of Grans.
Durzi and Walker are both on the trade block. I'd be surprised if either were still on the team next summer. Roy is a quality defenseman right now, but he's a stopgap. He'll stick around longer than Walker and Durzi, but I don't think he'll be back after his current contract ends.
Durzi, Spence, and Clarke all check the same box at RHD. The Kings only have a spot for one of those guys. Short term, it will likely be Spence, but long term, it will be Clarke. Clarke's recent play has demonstrated that he's not ready for the NHL yet.
If the Kings learned anything from last year, it's that it's good to have redundancies on the back end. There was a handful of games last season where every single one of their starting defensemen were on IR and they had to run 6 defensemen that weren't on the opening night roster. They don't want to go through that again.
Grans will be getting a shot in the league sooner rather than later. I think this season, he'll play in the AHL while he's still waiver exempt and will be the first called up to cover for injuries. Next season, he'll run with Doughty-Roy-Spence as the 7th defenseman, while Clarke gets a year in the AHL. 2024-25, we'll likely see Doughty-Grans-Clarke, with Spence either as #7 or someone playing on the left. By this point, Doughty will be pushing 36 years old and Clarke will likely be looking to take over as the #1 defenseman. Assuming everyone works out, I could see Clarke-Grans-Spence as the long-term defense of the future for the Kings.
You can't teach size, and Grans has a lot of it. The Kings defense is currently lacking size and grit at this point, so I don't see them willing to move Grans right now.