Good Night and Bad Luck
  

The 22-year-old O'Sullivan struggled with the varsity game in his first go around but has shown signs of life after being recalled from the Kings AHL Manchester affiliate on January 25.

Conroy's attitude will be missed in the locker room; he's an upbeat, positive role model for younger players and was one of the faces of the franchise during his tenure here. But with his production drastically dropping off (due in part to playing without talented wingers), it was a smart move to move him for a decent package. Lundmark, who is now considered a first round bust, has some speed and may look at this stop as his last chance in the NHL but of vital importance is what Lombardi does with those extra selections this year and next.

After the Conroy reverberations settled down, Lombardi made his best move since signing on to run the franchise this summer.

On Monday afternoon, Dean the Dream fooled a team, the New York Rangers, into taking Sean Avery off his hands and actually gave back a player off its NHL roster (RW Jason Ward) and a couple of mid-level prospects to boot (junior Marc Andre Cliché and European Jan Marek).

Lombardi would have been the winner of the deal if he got back a bag of pucks and two broken sticks for Avery.
 

Sather, who has an ego as big as Madison Square Garden, probably thinks that Avery can energize his team. In fact, they do need a boost as they don't have enough grinders, but Avery is far more poison than adrenaline and New York will find out in short order.

The Rangers need a second line center badly, but anyone that has watched Avery in that role knows he can't handle it. I won't rank this deal for the Kings above Lincoln freeing the slaves, but it's close and here's why.

From day one, Avery's stay in Los Angeles was a losing proposition for the Kings. If you don't remember, he was the key component in the regrettable Mathieu Schneider trade in March of 2003. Avery had been run out of Detroit by legend Steve Yzerman, but his feistiness and exceptional speed (he was always one of the fastest skaters on the Kings' squad) tricked then-GM Dave Taylor into thinking that Avery could flourish outside of Hockeytown, away from the big names and constant media pressure.

As the dust settles, the greatest accomplishment Avery had in Los Angeles was becoming a cult figure of sorts. If you're a fan of the Purple Reign, you know all about the WWAD shirts, now you can put them up for auction on eBay, folks. What you might not know is that Avery had also fooled then–Kings President Tim Leiweke into thinking that he sold oodles of seats because the fans loved him so.

Leiweke was also enamored with star power, so Avery actually became part of a little mafia that had the President's ear last season, along with the now-departed Jeremy Roenick and since-retired Luc Robitialle and those three encouraged him to dump Murray during last season's year end tail spin.

The fact remains that season ticket holders who were enamored with Avery's antics had bought their seats in the summer time, so he never really was responsible for the Kings' record setting attendance mark. The reason so many fans came to Staples last season is that a very loyal fan base had a competitive team deep into the season.

As time dragged on, the legion of Avery's loyalists lessened to such an extent than when Avery finally engaged former King and current Colorado Avalanche Ian Laperriere in a scrap, (Laperriere pursued Avery for two seasons after he made derogatory comments about French-Canadian players) most of Staples Center wasn't rooting for Avery.

Personality aside, let's focus in on the primary reason less folks are sad that he's gone.

He's not that good of a player. Sometimes a pesky thing called talent gets in the way, you know.

When Marc Crawford became the head coach of the Kings this summer, he promised Avery an honest shot to be an impact player on his team. After about 25 games, Crawford got the same message that former-coach Andy Murray got in his two seasons with the pest.

Avery doesn't have the offensive skill to play on the powerplay, he's a mediocre penalty killer and his decision making is among the worst in the league. His stay in Los Angeles has proven that he's a third line player with a terrible attitude. As marginal as his play was on the ice, he was far worse off it. About midway through last season, I saw Avery's on ice presence hurt the team most nights, but his personality kept him in the lineup. Some personality.

Sean Avery was a snarling, nasty man in a Kings locker room of decent guys. Despite denials you might hear publicly, he was universally disliked by the team.

Mattias Norstrom wouldn't comment on Avery's actions because he has more class in his pinky than Avery has in his whole body. Crawford put Norstrom and Rob Blake on each side of Avery's locker this season, but when someone doesn't want to listen, who wants to talk.

He was a cancer in the room and the media welcomed his refusal to talk after games this season. I only had the opportunity to speak with him a few times and usually came out of those discussions disgusted. There's that old saying "addition by subtraction" and the Kings have added so much by taking this player off their roster.

Whispers started last week that Avery was No.1 with a bullet on Lombardi's hot list to be dealt. Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun wrote a couple of Sundays ago that Lombardi's asking price for Avery was a first round pick. While I respect Mr. Garrioch's work, I got up off the floor from laughing so hard after reading that one; I figured Lombardi owed the writer some green for trying to make a market for this player.

Insiders will tell you that the Kings were trying to deal Avery for months, not weeks, with absolutely no interest. Maybe Glen Sather thinks that Jagr and Brendan Shanahan will set this guy straight, but Shanny has seen the act before and he wasn't buying the first time.

I'm waiting for the first slur to come against Europeans, I say it's plus/minus 10 games for those betting at home. Tom Renney had better get his penalty killers a lot of rest because they'll be killing off a lot of bad penalties in the final thirty games of the season, courtesy of Avery.

In fairness, there are some folks that are actually looking forward to Avery's arrival in the Big Apple. They would be the sports writers for the tabloid New York Post and New York Daily News. Those cats must be salivating in anticipation of printing the callous and sometimes racist slurs that Avery is famous for.

If you're a Kings' fan, you should be saying two words right now: Good riddance. I know I am.
 

Dennis Bernstein, the man behind SCORE! Media, is a columnist for TheFourthPeriod.com and the Los Angeles Correspondent for The Fourth Period Magazine.