Los Angeles Kings make official decision on buying out Dubois

PUBLICATION

Noel Drolet
May 6, 2024 (6:45 PM)

SHARE THIS STORY

With another disappointing season for the LA Kings, they have to start looking for where their shortcomings have been in the season. The obvious fingers to point for the Kings is at their underperforming new addition Pierre-Luc Dubois and GM Rob Blake who brought him in.

Dubois has been terrible this season, recording only 40 points in 82 games. Before the season he was given a contract for 8 years with an annual value of 8.5M after the Kings traded for him in the offseason. With 7 years left on Dubois' contract there were many rumours about a potential contract buyout, which would be absolutely insane. These rumours made it all the way up to GM Rob Blake, who denied all these rumours at his media availability earlier today.

It makes sense that the Kings would deny a buyout for Dubois, as the specifics for the buyout would be disastrous for the franchise. There are so many moving parts to this story as uncovered by Elliotte Friedman on the 32 thoughts podcast which make it a huge decision for the Kings to have to deal with.

Dubois is 25 right now, and the buyout penalty for a player under 26 is only 1/3 of their contract paid out over 2 times the length of the contract. For Dubois this would give him 22.6M paid out over 14 years. This means that the Kings would be stuck paying for his contract until 2038, which would definitely cost Blake his job. Kings President Luc Robitaille has already stated that they'd stay with Blake for next season, but it's obvious he's going to be kept on a very short leash.

The issue with this is that the buyout period begins 48 hours after the Stanley Cup Finals, of which the latest possible date is the 24th.
Dubois also turns 26 on June 24th, which means that the Kings may be stuck paying the 2/3 buyout penalty instead of the cheap one for under-agers. This isn't a feasible option for the Kings, so the decision can only be made by the Kings if the Stanley Cup Finals end before the last possible date. It'll be very interesting to watch this storyline closely and see how it progresses heading into the summer.