Jim Hiller is out as head coach and D.J. Smith will take over as the interim boss, the team announced Sunday.
The moves comes with the Kings sitting three points out of a wild-card berth entering Sunday’s action.
Los Angeles had dropped five straight games before beating the Calgary Flames 2-0 on Saturday.
In the fifth game — an 8-1 drubbing at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers, who have taken the Kings out of the playoffs in the first round for four straight years — fans could be heard chanting ‘fire Hiller.’
Hiller, the 56-year-old from Port Alberni, B.C., first joined the Kings as an assistant on Todd McLellan’s staff ahead of the 2022-23 season.
He was elevated to head coach one-and-a-half seasons later, and went on to post a 93-58-24 record over 175 games at the helm in his first NHL head-coaching appointment.
Hiller will now be replaced by his assistant Smith for the remainder of the season. Smith, the 48-year-old from Windsor, Ont., previously spent parts of five seasons as head coach of the Ottawa Senators, where he notched a 131-154-32 record over 317 games.
Player development coach Matt Greene will join the Kings bench as an assistant coach, the team said.
