Grading the Dubois for Kuemper trade: Washington and L.A. pull a stone-cold stunner

Credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

One major trade just wasn’t enough for one day.

Mere hours after the Calgary Flames sent Jacob Markstrom to the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday morning, the Washington Capitals and Los Angeles Kings swung an even more fascinating and consequential deal.

Heading to Washington: Pierre-Luc Dubois, who just wrapped up a thoroughly underwhelming single season with the Kings after signing an enormous eight-year contract with the club. Going the other way: Darcy Kuemper, a veteran goaltender who had lost his net in the U.S. capital.

The deal was, as they say, one-for-one. Let’s get into it a bit more in yet another edition of Daily Faceoff‘s Trade Grades!

LOS ANGELES KINGS

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G Darcy Kuemper, 34 – $5.25 million cap hit through 2027

It’s impossible to look at this deal without considering the one that came before it that put the Kings into such a difficult position.

Less than a year ago, the Kings parted with Gabe Vilardi, Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari, and Montreal’s 2024 second-round pick to acquire Dubois, then a pending RFA, from the Winnipeg Jets. Dubois immediately agreed to terms on a new contract with the Kings that locked him down at an $8.5 million cap hit for eight years. In the end, he only made it through one.

The Kings had a choice to make as they entered this offseason. Dubois has a full no-movement clause in his contract that will kick in on July 1, and with the Stanley Cup Final potentially going the distance, the Kings might not have been able to exercise a cheap buyout on the 25-year-old center. Instead, they convinced the Capitals to let them off the hook entirely without needing Dubois to sign off on the deal.

Instead of having Dubois on their payroll for the next seven years, the Kings now have Darcy Kuemper for the next three. The 34-year-old goaltender is coming off a year to forget in Washington, where he appeared in just 33 games during the 2023-24 season as Charlie Lindgren stole the starter’s job. That said, he can still make a difference in the right situation and is only two years removed from winning the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche. Kuemper represents a decent step up from the likes of Cam Talbot and David Rittich, who formed the Kings’ tandem last year.

In essence, the Kings turned Vilardi, Iafallo, Kupari, and a pick into one bad year from Dubois and, now, Kuemper. On its face, that doesn’t look very good. But the Kings avoided getting hamstrung with a sunk cost, and now they can move on having solved two problems with one deal. Not only did they send Dubois packing without having to retain salary or buy him out, but they also made sure they didn’t get left without a dance partner in the goalie market — after all, the Devils also made their move on Wednesday. All in all, they did just fine.

One last note: Kuemper appeared in 19 games with the Kings during the 2017-18 season, posting a 10-1-3 record and a .932 save percentage. If the Kings get those sorts of numbers from him again, you can go right ahead and change the letter below to a big ol’ A.

Grade: B

WASHINGTON CAPITALS

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C Pierre-Luc Dubois, 25 – $8.5 million cap hit through 2031

Holy moly. What are the Caps cooking?

It’s crystal clear that Washington wants to stay as competitive as possible for as long as Alex Ovechkin is still gunning for Wayne Gretzky’s career goals record. In theory, Dubois should help them with that. He’s a three-time 60-point scorer who has looked like a No. 1 center in the making at various points in his career. However, he’s also coming off his worst NHL season to date and is only one-eighth of the way through what might end up being the worst contract in the league.

Let’s assume the Capitals don’t buy out Dubois right away. That would be nuts, for sure, but it’s difficult to imagine the Caps having any appetite for that whatsoever. No, by all accounts, they intend to make this work on the ice. As of right now, their center depth for next season goes Dubois, Dylan Strome, Connor McMichael, and Nic Dowd. If Dubois rebounds, that’s not bad.

But … that’s a big “if.” We’ve seen Dubois completely fall off the map over and over and over, from his disastrous final shift with the Columbus Blue Jackets to his protracted trade request from the Winnipeg Jets — and now, he’s on his fourth team since 2021. And at least he showed some level of promise during his tenures in Columbus and Winnipeg: Dubois finished eighth on the Kings in scoring during his lone year in SoCal.

This is as big a gamble as any team in this league has made in a very long time. If this doesn’t work out, the situation in Washington could devolve from a team slowly going to seed into a complete catastrophe, maybe even one that endangers Ovechkin’s record chase. But even if Dubois does rediscover his game and blossom into a 70 or 80-point scorer, does that mean the Capitals will return to relevance? Probably not. If anything, this is just a move to delay the inevitable rebuild in Washington.

There are a lot of unknowns at play here. We’ll just have to wait and see — or, in this case …

Grade: Wait and C

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