Negotiations Taught Stumpel a Hard Lesson

The holdout over, Jozef Stumpel skated in a Kings’ uniform Thursday morning on one hour of sleep.

Forget about playing Thursday night.

“We skated him hard today and we will again tomorrow,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “We’ll probably play him in Dallas on Saturday.”

That’s the easy part, being on ice. That’s where it’s a game. Stumpel found out that off the ice, hockey is a serious business.

“It’s sometimes pretty hard, listening to all the stuff they say about you [in negotiations],” said Stumpel, whose contract will pay him $7.7 million over three years, marked down from $7.95 million because of fines for missing training camp.

Stumpel’s negotiations began on Aug. 17, when he presented himself as a $3-million-a-year center with a history of a point a game, only to find out he was considered a $2.2-million player with a history of injury.

After two months of negotiations, he signed a contract worth $2.45 million this season, $2.65 million next and $2.85 million in its third season. But the $2.45 million was reduced by about $250,000 in fines for missing training camp, and a pro-rated reduction of about $140,000 for missing the season’s first seven games diminishes the figure further.

“There are lots of things you don’t expect,” he said of the negotiations. “At some point I was ready to give up and go back [to Slovakia]. And then I wasn’t. I wanted to get it done.”

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Defenseman Rob Blake is not yet skating after suffering a hairline fracture in his lumbar vertebra last Friday. He has said he is hopeful of playing next week.