Seven games, six games, then five games, that's how long it took for the Los Angeles Kings to get kicked out of the first round in each of the last three seasons.

Playing the same team three years in a row is annoying for fans, but it does provide an opportunity to judge how much you've grown in that time.

In those three years, the gap between the Kings and Edmonton Oilers has widened significantly leading to their quick exit from round one.

Yes, the Oilers have two of the league's biggest superstars in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and they were further along in their process than the Kings when these matchups started.

From that perspective, three straight losses to them aren't a big deal.

However, it becomes problematic when a front office aggressively moves future assets and puts the team into cap trouble chasing a win-now approach.

Rob Blake and Luc Robitaille should be at the end of their leash with the organization after these last three seasons. 

The Kings have traded, two first-round picks, two second-round picks, a third-round pick, Gabe Vilardi (11th overall in 2017), Rasmus Kupari (18th overall in 2018), Brock Faber (Calder Trophy finalist 2024), and Helge Grans (35th overall in 2020).

Not all of those assets are a huge deal, a third isn't that bad to move and Kupari and Grans look like non-factors, but that's a lot of assets to give up for very little return.

Even the return that has been good, Kevin Fiala and Vladislav Gavrikov, have not moved the needle for the Kings. Some of the moves weren't bad in isolation but simply because the Kings weren't ready for them.

There are also players like Tobias Bjornfot and Jaret Anderson-Dolan who were lost for nothing on waivers. Again, not a huge deal considering the quality of those two, but it's still poor asset management. 

There's also the issue of player development under this front office. From 2017-2021 the Kings had 14 picks in the top-two rounds of the draft, including six first-round picks and three top-10 picks.

From those picks, the Kings have one top-six forward or top-four defenseman in Quinton Byfield and a potential one in Brandt Clarke.

Getting, at most, two impact players out of that group of picks is terrible and another consequence of moving on from the rebuild process and trying to win now too early.

Byfield is the only player who's developed into a top-of-the-lineup player, but he's also the only one to get a consistent look in that position. The majority of their other prospects have been asked to play bottom-six roles that don't fit the game they were drafted to play.

The Kings have also blocked the path for several prospects over the last three years, leading to trades or losing players on waivers.

Not every pick will hit, that's why you load up on picks when rebuilding because on some level it's a crapshoot who hits and who doesn't. However, the Kings' return from their drafted players is terrible.

A simple solution would have also been not trading away some of your best prospects. Namely Vilardi and Faber.

The Pierre-Luc Dubois Trade:

All of these decisions bring us to the Pierre-Luc Dubois trade. The Kings traded, Vilardi, Kupari, Alex Iafallo, and a 2024 second-round pick for Dubois and signed him to an 8-year, $68 million contract extension.

In year one of said one of that contract, Dubois posted 40 points and a second-worst -9 plus-minus. "He was acquired for the playoffs, that's when he shines." This is the line King's Brass sold to everyone.

One goal, an even plus-minus and 20 penalty minutes, that's all Dubois, a supposed difference-maker at this time of the year, mustered.

As it turned out, the playoffs when games get more physical and require more effort, are not when Dubois shines, he wilts. 

However, I still stand by the opinion that Dubois is not a 40-point player, and his back-to-back 60-point seasons before coming to LA show that. 

I believe the Kings horribly misused Dubois throwing him in the bottom six and on the half-wall on the second power-play unit for most of the season.

But that only makes this trade and signing look worse. They went out and spent significant assets on a player they seemingly had no idea how to utilize properly. 

They thought he and Fiala would act as an all-offense third line that flipped matchups for them, but the second that didn't work out they had nothing.

The decision to spend what they did on a player, only to bring him in and put him on the third line and not use him in his preferred spot on the power play, where he has picked up a lot of his goals, is baffling.

Dubois needed to be better, but the Kings' poor planning with this trade is just as much of an issue.

That word planning is key there, because what has the plan been under Blake, Robitaille and this front office?

Was it to rebuild through the draft after 2019? Because they didn't do that. Was it to chase another Cup with Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty? After three consecutive first-round losses and limited room for improvement, that seems very unlikely.

Five years after the "rebuild" started, it doesn't seem there was ever a firm plan from this front office. No long-term planning on how to get this team back to Cup contention.

Or, perhaps more concerning, this was the plan. Drafting a lot of high-picks with no development path for them, only to trade some of your best prospects for pieces that won't get you over the hump as you chase a Cup with two fading legends.

Either way, the Blake and Robaitalle era for the Kings should be coming to an end, and their replacements should come from outside the organization.

No more hiring team legends and friends, it's time to get ruthless.