Roster of Stanley Cup favourite is marked by winning deals with the Edmonton Oilers

Los Angeles Kings general manager Dean Lombardi must thank his lucky stars for the Edmonton Oilers.

Lomdardi didn’t get the key pieces — Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar and Jonathan Quick — of his juggernaut Los Angeles Kings from the Edmonton Oilers, but he did get some important role players.

For example, when it was time to kill off a crucial five-on-three penalty against the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday night, former Oilers d-man Matt Greene was on the ice, hammering away at Chicago ace Jonathan Toews in front of the net, while simultaneously blocking off a passing lane to sniper Patrick Sharp.

The 6-foot, 3-inch, 234-pound Greene, 31, is a bit player with the Kings now, but he’s still capable of coming through at a key moment in the biggest of games. He’s fierce, tough, defensively responsible and effective, so long as he’s not asked to do too much. Indeed, ever since Oilers hockey boss Kevin Lowe traded away Greene, Edmonton has been searching to find a player just like him for their third-pairing, trying out the likes of Jason Strudwick, Jim Vandermeer, Mark Fistric, Colten Teubert and Mark Fraser. None of them was close to being as effective as Greene was.

As for Stoll, at 6-feet, 1-inches and 210-pounds, he’s been a big, tough, hard-checking, faceoff-winning centre for the Kings, and a player who throws in some offence now and then. Again, since getting rid of Stoll, the Oilers have been chasing after this same kind of player but forever coming up short, bringing in the likes of Gilbert Brule, Eric Belanger and, most recently, Boyd Gordon.

In June 2008 when Lowe traded Greene, then 25, and Jarret Stoll, then 26, for 32-year-old, high-priced d-man Lubo Visnovsky, the Oilers GM traded away two young vets of the 2006 Stanley Cup run, players who would have provided leadership, size, toughness and some skill. They were real NHLers heading into the prime years of their careers. It’s easy to imagine that Greene could have been captain of the Oilers, Stoll an assistant captain.

As for Visnovsky, he played his usual brand of high event hockey here, plenty of nice moves and no shortage of high impact defensive mistakes. Many fans were dazzled by his attacking skills — and the Viz is a fine offensive hockey player — but the Oilers overpaid for him.

One other trade can be put into an even greater category of botched deal, Lombardi’s clever unloading of Patrick O’Sullivan on the Oilers, a deal that saw Edmonton send Erik Cole to Carolina and Carolina Justin Williams to L.A. Williams has been a key cog in the Kings attack ever since then, while Cole has been an effective NHLer for a few teams. O’Sullivan? It’s hard to imagine there’s been a weaker forward who got Top 6 minutes in the NHL in recent years than O’Sullivan with the Oilers in 2009-10. The Oilers also got a second round pick in this deal, which GM Steve Tambellini traded to Buffalo for Ales Kotalik.

How could any scout recommend the Oilers make such deal as trading for the ineffectual O’Sullivan? A total fiasco of a trade.

Finally there’s the Dustin Penner deal from February 2011. Penner was a huge and effective two-way winger on the Oilers, but he always left his coaches and many fans hungry for more. He has a lumbering quality on the ice which can make it look like he’s not giving his all. In the 2012 playoffs, however, Penner played a key Top 6 role on a Kings team that won the Stanley Cup.

In return for Penner, the Oilers got Colten Teubert, who lacked the skating and hockey sense to make it as an NHLer, and a first-round pick, which turned into Oscar Klefbom, a promising defensive prospect, and a third-round pick, struggling KHLer Daniil Zharkov. This deal was more of a trade-off, but due to Penner’s role in the 2012 Cup win, it was certainly a win for L.A.

The lesson in all this? Good scouting, good decisions, good results. Lombardi was keen to build a big, tough and skilled team and he did so partly at the expense of the Oilers.