Initial Thoughts as Jim Hiller relieved of his duties, D.J. Smith Named Interim Head Coach
As announced earlier today, the LA Kings have relieved Jim Hiller of his duties as the team’s Head Coach. Associate Coach D.J. Smith has been named as the team’s Interim Head Coach, while former Kings defenseman Matt Greene has been named as an Assistant Coach for the remainder of the regular season.
General Manager Ken Holland offered clarity behind the decision today, as today’s move most certainly came as a response to the team’s recent form. The Kings have, simply put, not met expectations this season and the two games on Wednesday and Thursday have been a rock bottom on a season of disappointment. Thought that the loss to a Vegas team missing five star players was the new low but an 8-1 defeat to Edmonton the following night showed me I was incorrect. There was a lot of optimism coming out of the Olympic break, with the addition of Artemi Panarin, but the Kings turned in perhaps their poorest 48 hours of the season in defeats against Vegas and Edmonton. Despite a win yesterday, something obviously needed to change.
“Couple of tough games going into the Olympic break and I was hoping that the time off and then the mini training camp, that our team was able to respond,” Ken Holland said this morning. “Tough couple of games coming out, especially the game against Edmonton on Thursday night. On Friday, I did lot of thought, I talked to Luc quite a bit and eventually came to the decision that I needed to make a coaching change. I didn’t do it on Friday because Friday was an off day, the players weren’t here and we played at four o’clock on Saturday. I didn’t want just a new coach behind and make the move going into a game.”
Until this point, the Kings were a fairly simple team to analyze. They prevented goals with the best of them but have struggled to score. 14 goals against over the first six periods coming out of the break, after allowing four goals in consecutive defeats going into the break and what has been the foundation of this team for so long has crumbled. Things that worked, despite the team’s shortcomings, eroded coming out of the break.
With 23 games remaining in the season, there is still time to get things back on track, at least in terms of qualifying for the postseason. But it became apparent that a new voice is needed in order to do so. Today’s move signals that. While I don’t believe that fan sentiment factored into today’s decision, the chants at Thursday’s game to make a change at the Head Coaching position certainly made things even more uncomfortable, as the Kings skated to their most lopsided defeat of the season, an 8-1 loss to Edmonton.
Ultimately, what has gone on falls on a number of different places. Hiller bears his share of responsibility as the team’s bench boss. The Kings have not scored nearly enough goals for the bulk of the season and on a recent five-game losing streak, they were not preventing them either. They are certainly not getting results. The level of play has not been what this team is capable of, often times even in games they’ve won. Hasn’t looked or felt right all year and we are approaching Game 60. When you look at the landscape of changes you can make, replacing the Head Coach is the easiest lever to pull, right or wrong. While not all of this is on Hiller, the overall level of play and the results we’ve seen have not been good enough and he does bear some of that responsibility.
So what’s next?
Well, the Kings play tomorrow against the best team in the NHL and they’re approaching three quarters of the way through the season. Not exactly an ideal time to have a list questions that needs to be answered. And that list is only getting longer. But one thing that Hiller had correct after the Edmonton game is that something needs to be done to get the team where it needs to be in order to get things turned around. Because there’s no time to lose.
While a coaching change could present a spark, or perhaps some solutions, it’s not one-stop shopping in that area. I think that several forwards in the Top-9 have underperformed this season from a production standpoint. Couple you could make the case for the other way but while I think a lot of reasons have been thrown around for the team’s lack of scoring, I point to that area first. They’re not getting a ton of help from the blueline in terms of offensive production either. It’s a group of defensemen that is largely slanted towards defensive hockey and that’s led to problems with breakouts and in transition. The team was constructed to lean even harder into the defensive side of the game, playing a style of hockey the organization believed would win in the playoffs. It certainly hasn’t won in the regular season and the team is the same as it was yesterday.
Perhaps a new voice at the top can help and I think Matt Greene is a good voice to help in that department.
Ken Holland used the word “jolt” to describe what he hopes D.J. Smith can add. He further added that Smith was always involved, as the Associate Coach, but it’s a different thing when you’re the guy in charge. He anticipates a couple of “tweaks” to the way the team plays, but there’s one practice before a game, so it’s not as if things can drastically change overnight. But Holland hopes that a change to the message and a “clean slate” will help.
The positives here are simple. The Kings are still within a stone’s throw of a playoff spot. Despite the two losses, they got just about every other result to go their way. Los Angeles is the same three points today out of a spot that they were on Tuesday. So, the change here is with a singular goal – close that gap and qualify for the playoffs.
The Kings have been a “fake .500” team by winning percentage all season but the facts are that the NHL currently rewards teams that are in games and reach overtime. The Kings have done that often. So, there isn’t a 10-point gap to be made up or five teams to be passed just to get back in the conversation, as teams in this position often do. As the staff changes today, the Kings are just outside of a playoff spot. 23 games sounds like a lot, and it’s not nothing. But they cannot be squandered.
With that being said, the larger picture here is not just an overnight fix.
The Kings can make another trade and I wouldn’t be surprised if they did at some point, but what kind of moves would they really make? The team is not currently in a position to spend sizable future assets in order to win now, especially if those players added do not help the team beyond this season. Lots of areas that could be helped, no doubt, but it would be hard to see any moves made that aren’t like the move to acquire Panarin, with multiple seasons committed to, someone who has a defined role on next season’s team.
Still, though, I find myself continuing to go back to what I wrote above. There is not one player who is available for a trade who just magically turns around the fortunes of the team. That’ll be the challenge that Smith, Greene and the pieces in place are currently facing. Yeah, they could get a trade or two along the way, but without an uptick from the current group in place, and a pretty substantial one at that, without the Kings making sizable changes and improvements, it really won’t matter. It can work, at least in the short term. But a lot of things need to change for the better in order to get there.
Lastly, as Hiller departs, I think that anyone who covers this team on a daily basis – which is a pretty small crew in this market – is saddened today on a personal note. Jim Hiller is a good man who treated those who do this job very, very well. I’ll miss working with him. The way he carried himself has always been that of a good person, who rarely showed anything but respect to those on the other side of the camera. I know that his personality didn’t really translate onto what the public saw, but he had a really good one. Lots of things he did behind the scenes, that people don’t know, that are the mark of a good person. It was always enjoyable to interact with Jim and to build that relationship over the last couple of years. I’ll wish him well wherever he goes next. I hope he finds a ton of success and I know that I will not be the only person who feels that way. Good people tend to have that effect and Jim Hiller, while painted a certain way by Kings fans, is a good person who deserves these feelings as he departs the organization.
More to follow here, certainly, as the story continues to evolve.
