Palffy Is Thinking Long-Term

Ziggy Palffy has broached the subject of a long-term contract extension with the Kings and, his agent said, has been reasonably assured by management that the club will retain the prolific winger despite persistent trade rumors.

Paul Kraus was summoned by Palffy from his office in Edmonton, Canada, to clarify the situation and sat down over the last few days with owner Philip Anschutz, President Tim Leiweke and General Manager Dave Taylor.

“Nothing’s certain, but I think it’s more [a case of], the rumors are rumors, nothing more,” Kraus said Tuesday. “They’ve said they don’t want to trade him and they’re not actively shopping him, and I take that as what the situation is.

“But never say never, right?”

After Monday’s 3-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks, Taylor said, Kraus met with the general manager and asked if the Kings would be interested in discussing a contract extension. “I told him we would be open to that,” Taylor said.

Palffy, 30, is being paid $7.25 million this season and will be due $7 million next season after a club option in his contract is exercised.

As the Kings prepare to open a five-game trip Thursday night at Philadelphia, the dynamic Slovak is riding a nine-game point-scoring streak. Over the Kings’ last 14 games, he has 11 goals and 10 assists.

“I think it’s to his credit that when all this stuff is being written in the papers that he has the ability to ignore it and keep playing,” Kraus said. “For him, anything in the papers is a distraction. He’s not motivated by it. He’s not that type of guy. He doesn’t like attention.... He wants to be a part of a team, and when everybody’s concentrating on one guy, that takes away from his concept of what a team is.”

Palffy will be eligible for unrestricted free agency after next season but has made it clear he wants to stay with the Kings.

“Everybody worries about their future,” Kraus said. “Ziggy last time took a very long-term contract [his current six-year deal, signed while he was still with the New York Islanders] and he was comfortable with it.... You only get one chance to be an unrestricted free agent, but it’s a lottery. Sometimes you do real well at it and sometimes you have a bad year [or] you have an injury and it’s not such a glorious thing. It goes both ways.”

*

*--* King of Kings King forward Ziggy Palffy leads the team in goals, assists and plus-minus. A look at the top five: Player G A Pts +/- Ziggy Palffy 24 34 58 11 Mathieu Schneider 12 27 39 -2 Bryan Smolinski 12 18 30 -8 Jaroslav Modry 9 21 30 -7 Jason Allison 6 22 28 9

*--*