KINGS DEAL GOALTENDER QUICK
The Los Angeles Kings achieved their goal of adding a quality defenseman near the trade deadline. It came with a heavy cost.
The Kings acquired defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov and goaltender Joonas Korpisalo in a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets. In return, Los Angeles sent two-time Stanley Cup winning goaltender Jonathan Quick, a conditional 2023 first-round draft pick and a third-rounder in 2024.
“The team’s performance over the last month put us in position that we felt as a staff we needed to go out and address needs that we had identified previously to help this team continue to push for the playoffs,” Kings Vice President and General Manager Rob Blake said during a conference call on Wednesday.
Los Angeles is tied with Vegas for most points in the Pacific Division with 76. The Kings got to the playoffs last season for the first time since 2018 but lost in seven games to Edmonton in the first round. They have not won a postseason series since winning the Cup in 2014.
The first-rounder is conditional on the Kings making the playoffs, as expected. If they do not, Columbus — which has a league-low 46 points — gets a secondround pick from L.A. each of the next two drafts as part of the trade completed late Tuesday night and announced Wednesday.
Quick found out about the trade in a phone call from Blake after Tuesday night’s 6-5 shootout victory over the Winnipeg Jets. Blake was not with the team during the fivegame road trip.
“There was shock and disappointment,” Blake said.
“The setting wasn’t perfect because of the time. That was not an easy decision and I’ll reiterate how important he (Quick) is to the franchise and the organization.”
Blake added that he talked to captain Anze Kopitar and defenseman Drew Doughty after his call with Quick to let them know what happened.
Soccer
Arsenal extended its lead in the Premier League to five points by beating Everton 4-0, with Gabriel Martinelli scoring two of the goals in one of his team’s biggest wins of the season.
Everton stunned the leaders with a 1-0 win at home on Feb. 4 but couldn’t reproduce those exploits at Emirates Stadium, where Bukayo Saka put Arsenal in front with a rising shot into the roof of the net from a tight angle in the 40th minute.
• Liverpool boosted its chances of getting back in the
Champions League qualification places in the Premier League by beating Wolverhampton 2-0 thanks to second-half goals by Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah.
Liverpool climbed to sixth and is now six points behind fourth-place Tottenham, with a game in hand.
Local colleges
Jason McElroy finished a 1-over 217 to tie for seventh and lead Cal State San Marcos to a sixth-place finish out of 16 teams on a windy day at the Battle in the Desert at PGA West Mountain Course in La Quinta.
• The CSUSM men’s basketball team earned four All-CCAA selections as Greg Milton III was CSUSM’s lone first-team honoree while Quinn Denker, Jayce McCain and Joel Mensah earned second-team honors.
• San Diego State swimmers Christiana Williams, Kristina Murphy and Alex Roberts have qualified for the 2023 NCAA Championships, set for March 15-18 in Knoxville, Tenn.
• Point Loma Nazarene women’s basketball duo Haylee Saurette and Allie Carreon were selected to the All-PacWest second team.
Tennis
Top-ranked Novak Djokovic eased into the quarterfinals at the Dubai Championships by beating
Tallon Griekspoor 6-2, 6-3.
Djokovic extended his winning streak to 19 matches in tidy fashion a day after being pushed to a third-set tiebreaker by 130th-ranked
Tomas Machac.
Also Wednesday, defending champion Andrey Rublev produced a 1-6, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (3) comeback win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
The Russian saved five match points in the secondset tiebreaker. He won seven straight points after going down 1-6.
• An exhibition tennis match that originally was supposed to pit Rafael Nadal against Carlos Alcaraz and was scheduled for Sunday in Las Vegas has been canceled due to injuries to both players. Ticket purchases can be refunded.
Also
Chase De Leo scored twice and had an assist for San Diego, but the Gulls (1539-1-0) lost to the visiting Henderson Silver Knights (20-29-0-5) in a battle of the two cellar-dwellers in the AHL’s Pacific Division.
• Just Fontaine, the French soccer great who scored a record 13 goals at the 1958 World Cup, has died. He was 89. That record still stands today.