Kings, Ducks deny Pronger trade rumor

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Los Angeles Kings General Manager Dean Lombardi and a spokesman for the Anaheim Ducks said today that there’s nothing to a rumor that the teams had made a deal to send Chris Pronger to the Kings for Jack Johnson and the Kings’ pick in the entry draft, the fifth selection overall.

‘Not true,’ Lombardi said via e-mail.

The website thescore.com was reporting the trade as a done deal even after Lombardi’s denial. A spokesman for the Ducks said the same thing, calling the report ‘totally false. Inaccurate. Out of thin air.’

There are many reasons to believe it’s bogus, and it’s difficult to imagine the NHL would approve a deal of that magnitude on the day of the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final and allow a trade to take attention away from its showcase event.

That’s not to say the Ducks won’t ever trade Pronger. They will probably shop him actively at the draft, as they try to get younger. And it wouldn’t be a shock for the Kings to deal Jack Johnson, because Lombardi has a habit of getting rid of players who dare to stand up to him at the bargaining table.

But this rumor isn’t worth expending any more energy on.

-- Helene Elliott