Salary cap keeps the Kings in check

There are Kings fans who, like all NHL zealots, weave trade scenario after trade scenario on Internet sites. Media outlets, most north of the border, trot out speculations about who is going where and for whom. General managers are burning cellphone minutes at fossil fuel pace.

Yet, under the new collective-bargaining agreement, there is a wide gap between seeing a need and filling a need. The $44-million salary cap leaves teams less wiggle room, and loopholes have been tightened. “This is no revelation,” Kings General Manager Dean Lombardi said. “Look at the other sports [with salary caps] and this is what has happened. The NBA, you see so many cap deals, sometimes three- or four-way deals to try to make all the players fit. It was certainly kind of predictable.”

Still, the lack of deals is noticeable.

There have been three trades involving NHL players this season, all by the Ducks. They sent Stanislav Chistov to the Boston Bruins and Todd Fedoruk to the Philadelphia Flyers for draft picks, then acquired George Parros from the Colorado Avalanche for a draft pick.

The Ducks, though, are a “have” team as they sit atop the Western Conference, and the trades cleared $800,000 off their payroll. The Kings, meanwhile, are a “have not” with particular needs if they want to close the talent gap with teams above them in the standings.

The Kings seem to need a top-line forward and better goaltending, though the latter seems to be Pandora’s crease with the two-year, $6.2-million contract they gave Dan Cloutier in September.

Although the Kings began the season about $5.5 million under the cap, it takes two to tango. But it’s not just money. Any high-end player the Kings pursue would require a price they’re unwilling to pay.

The San Jose Sharks, for example, saw a need last year and went after Boston Bruins center Joe Thornton and sacrificed three members of their young core, all first-round picks: defenseman Brad Stuart and forwards Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau. And teams looking to move a player in a salary dump, as the Ducks did in trading Sergei Fedorov to the Columbus Blue Jackets last season, are likely to be seeking young players or top prospects, something with which the Kings are unlikely to go along.

“Once you fill up your roster, you have to work with your people,” Florida Panthers General Manager Jacques Martin said last week. “It’s not like in the past where if you weren’t happy with a guy or you had an injury, you could go and get somebody.”

The Kings are 11th in the Western Conference with a 7-11-4 record, and had played more games than any other conference team through Sunday.

“If you do a deal thinking you have to do a deal, that is so dangerous, you’re asking for trouble,” Lombardi said. “You have to find the right deal or you could regret it later. This is not like a fantasy league.”

New rules also hinder a trade. When the New York Rangers acquired Jaromir Jagr during the 2003-04 season, they got a Washington Capitals gain tax, as the Capitals are believed to be paying $4 million of Jagr’s $11-million annual salary. Such finagling was removed from the table under the new CBA.

“If a team couldn’t fit a player into their budget, you still found a way to make the deal. You would subsidize the deal. Now there is no way to bridge that gap,” Lombardi said.

Player movement probably will pick up as the Feb. 27 trade deadline approaches, as it did last year.

Said Vancouver Canucks General Manager Dave Nonis in the Vancouver Province last week: “You only have so many changes you can make, and you’ve got to make the right ones.”

chris.foster@latimes.com