from Lisa Dillman of the LA Times,

Kings General Manager Dean Lombardi's big moment came away from the draft floor with the Lucic trade.

"I do think every player on our team just grew three inches and put on 10 pounds of muscle," Lombardi said Friday on a conference call. "So that don't hurt."

The Bruins also will pick up $2.75 million of Lucic's $6-million salary for next season, no small issue in a world constrained by salary caps. Boston drafted Lucic, and he won a Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011 but realized his days with the rebuilding organization were numbered when he started hearing trade rumors.

"I had a lot of mixed emotions in the last 48 hours," Lucic said in a telephone call from Kelowna, British Columbia. "I kind of had that nervous, anxious, excited, sad, all-in-one feeling, going on in my stomach this morning. Like something big was going to happen."

Lombardi, whose team missed the playoffs this past season after winning the Stanley Cup in 2014, looked at his organizational charts and boxes and seized the chance to check the power-forward/left wing box.

"It's the Clark Gillies, Bryan Trottier, Mike Bossy-type trio that most people think is the ultimate-type line," Lombardi said of the Islanders icons. "We also wondered whether Gabby [Marian Gaborik] was better on the right [wing].

"To get a player like Clark Gillies, there's not many like this in the league, that can play with top players and bring that element."

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