Kings Hope Exposure Won’t Burn Them

Sean O’Donnell a Columbus Blue Jacket? Or a Minnesota Wild?

Not if Dave Taylor can help it. But as of Tuesday, he couldn’t help it at all.

“[O’Donnell] was the only defenseman we had to expose [in the June 23 expansion draft],” said Taylor, the Kings’ senior vice president and general manager. “Rob Blake and Mattias Norstrom were the only others we had who qualified.”

As the Kings’ no. 1 defense pair, Blake and Norstrom aren’t going anywhere.

The key word here is “qualified.” The Kings had to make available at least one defenseman and two forwards who played in 40 NHL games last season or 70 over the last two and that were signed to NHL contracts. The other option to exposing O’Donnell was signing either Garry Galley or Aki Berg, neither of whom is under contract for next season. Berg is a restricted free agent.

As expected, the Kings protected goalies Jamie Storr and Stephane Fiset, which meant they also could shelter only three defensemen and seven forwards. On that protected list are defensemen Blake, Norstrom and Berg, and forwards Kelly Buchberger, Ian Laperriere, Glen Murray, Ziggy Palffy, Luc Robitaille, Bryan Smolinski and Jozef Stumpel.

The 30 players left present a curious mixture for the Blue Jackets and Wild, both of whom will begin play in October.

The Kings’ strategy is evolving, having included talks with Columbus and Minnesota to see what it would take to prod them in the direction Taylor is pointing.

The chief push will be for either team to select goalie Steve Passmore, acquired in a trade with Chicago a few weeks ago. Under draft rules, a team that loses a goalie can’t lose a defenseman.

Another factor is that, at a salary of more than $1 million this season and with unrestricted free agency on the horizon at season’s end, O’Donnell, a strong defensive defenseman, might not be as appealing to either expansion club.

“If we can hold onto Sean, we would like to do it,” said Taylor, who, as always, qualified the statement by saying a maneuver to do so “has to make sense.”

Generally such a deal involves “future considerations,” usually draft choices, and the Kings are in a long line with the rest of the NHL to give away those future considerations to protect current assets.

The Passmore strategy could be confounded by recent deals in which both expansion teams acquired young goalies. Minnesota picked up Marc Denis from Colorado, and Columbus got Manny Fernandez from Dallas.

They figure to be their new clubs’ No. 1 goalies next season.

Another scenario could involve King winger Craig Johnson, a Minnesota product who attended the state university. The Wild is understood to covet local players to promote in an area that lost an NHL team to Dallas seven years ago.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be protected,” Johnson said. “Obviously, I would prefer to stay with the Kings, but if I’m picked up, if it happens, then it happens.”

Among other Kings exposed to the expansion draft is winger Nelson Emerson, acquired from Atlanta in the Donald Audette trade in March. The Kings figure Emerson as a second-line winger and are hopeful that his age, 32, and salary, about $2 million for the 2000-2001 season, will make him undesirable for teams that are likely to follow the expansion draft path to less-expensive and younger players.

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King Notes

A source close to the situation said the Kings will announce today that they have bought the inactive Cornwall franchise in the American Hockey League from former Pittsburgh owner Howard Baldwin and will move the team to Manchester, N.H., for the 2001-2002 season. The Kings will remain affiliated with Lowell, Mass., for one more American Hockey League season before taking over the Manchester franchise completely, including management, staff and players. . . . The entry draft is June 24-25 in Calgary and the Kings will pick 20th in the first round. Center Justin Papineau, with whom the Kings could not reach agreement on a contract earlier this month, will reenter the draft. Papineau had a strong junior hockey career. . . . King assistant Dave Tippett has interviewed for the head coaching jobs at Minnesota and Columbus.