El Segundo, CA (My Sportsbook) - The
Los Angeles Kings have acquired goaltender Roman Cechmanek from the
Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for a second-round pick in the 2004 draft.
"Going into the off-season one of our top priorities was to address our goaltending situation for next season," said Kings general manager Dave Taylor. "After looking at all the options we had available, we felt that making a trade and acquiring Roman Cechmanek in particular was our best course of action. Roman will help stabilize this position for the Kings as he has proven to be one of the NHL's top goaltenders for the past three seasons."
The 32-year-old Cechmanek was 33-15-10 with a 1.83 goals-against average and six shutouts in the 2002-03 regular season.
In the year's post-season, Cechmanek was 6-7 with a 2.15 goals-against average. He was very solid in Philadelphia's first-round victory over Toronto, but was sporadic in the Flyers' second-round loss to Ottawa.
A native of the Czech Republic, the unorthodox Cechmanek had spent his entire three-year career in the NHL with Philadelphia. He has played in 163 regular- season contests and compiled a record of 92-43-22 with 20 shutouts and a goals-against average of 1.96. However, in the post-season Cechmanek is just 9-14 and has led his team out of the first round only once.
Cechmanek's 1.83 goals-against-average this season was second to Dallas' Marty Turco in the NHL and his .925 save percentage ranked third. An NHL All-Star in 2001, he was also named by the Flyers as the 2003 winner of the Bobby Clarke Trophy as the team's Most Valuable Player.
Despite the honor, Cechmanek fell out of favor with Clarke, the Flyers' general manager. After the season ended Clarke said it would be "very difficult to bring Roman back" for next season and added he was unsure if Cechmanek wanted to play in the NHL.
"Although he never asked to be traded this season, he did ask after last season," said Clarke in a statement on Wednesday. "We just thought that it was time for us to go in a different direction."
