Apparently, the Blues and Flyers trade has stalled. It seems like Krug was the guy that needed to be persuaded to waive his NTC and it's a no-go on that end so far.
On the Kings end, they have traded Sean Durzi to the Coyotes for Montreal's 2024 2nd round pick. Solid offense-driving young defenseman. Found himself in rough spots defensively that have led to goals against. The Coyotes could use a young defensemen like Durzi to drive the offense in the blue line though. As for the Kings, they got cap space ($9M as of right now, with 16/23 roster spots locked) and opened spots for guys like Jordan Spence and Brandt Clarke to step in and fill that void, hopefully more comfortably in the defensive metrics.
There are also some reports that's gaining traction of a big trade for the Kings to trade for and sign Winnipeg Jets center, Pierre-Luc Dubois. The cost will apparently involve Gabe Vilardi and Alex Iafallo and other stuff. I'm not too huge on this development. Vilardi, after 6 years since they drafted him, finally looks like a very solid every day player (although injuries reared part of that good season he had) and Iafallo is a very solid defensive forward with good enough streaks of offense in him. Also, it doesn't help that it looks like PLD has dogged near the end of the 1st two teams he was a part of in his NHL career. Great upside and has good production thus far, but in my opinion, I don't like those kinds of players that just dogs it because they don't want to be in those teams (I know Winnipeg and Columbus aren't attractive cities to play in, but still. You kill your own perception and worth when it looks like you aren't trying as much for these teams.)
Then again, I think back at the Mike Richards and the Jeff Carter trades the Kings pulled in 2011-12 and they had their own reputations at the time that people didn't like in Philly and Columbus and I look back at the pieces the Kings gave up. Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds, Jack Johnson, etc, and this was also after the Kings making it to the playoffs two years in a row and not making it out of the first round. Could be Rob Blake's version of pulling these kinds of move to try to shake the roster up after losing twice to the Oilers in the 1st round and he's thinking, "We can't run the roster again with the same group of forwards. A shift needs to happen." I just wish he gets the goalie situation sorted out before any ideas of going big game forward hunting.