It’s now officially official, Jim Hiller has signed a three-year contract to serve as LA’s new head coach. With that in mind, the Kings held a quasi introduction press conference on Thursday. Obviously, local media has been dealing with Hiller since he first took over as the interim coach in February. Nonetheless, this was a an opportunity to talk about what comes next. The team is said to be in the middle of changing their systems and/or structure, with an emphasis on potentially opening up the offense for next season.
General Manager Rob Blake kicked off the press conference. During his initial comments, Blake talked about Hiller meeting “the criteria we’re looking for [in terms of] the different characteristics or attributes.” He specifically referred to watching Hiller “under pressure,” especially taking the team over “in a very difficult time and steering it in the right direction.”
Blake also reiterated that he is “very confident in Jim’s approach to challenge, not only the group, but the players individually. And then there’s a follow-up process to keep everybody inline … His presence in front of the group is very important to us, the way he can command the room and drive home the points that we make together, the direction that we want to go together.”
He also made sure to mention that Hiller has effectively navigated and worked with other staff members throughout the organization — “strength and conditioning, development, analytics” — which plays a big part in the team’s overall plan.
Exit interviews with the players also impacted the decision to hire Hiller.
As part of the meeting, Blake confirmed it is a three-year contract for Hiller and there are “some triggers that could potentially get it to four years.” He also confirmed our earlier report that assistant coach DJ Smith has term left on his contract.
LA’s new head coach began by thanking his family, former teammates, other coaches (including Jacques Lemaire), and several people in Kings/AEG leadership positions and briefly reflected on his own journey from being drafted by the Kings 35 years ago to now being announced as the team’s 30th head coach.
And now on to some selected highlights from the Q&A session:
[ed. note: some answers are paraphrased for brevity and/or clarity]
1. Hiller on if he can elaborate on the system or style changes that may be coming:
Well, I’m not going to get any details right now. Let’s just put it this way, we’ve started the process of looking at everything about our game. We are a top defensive team in the National Hockey League, and have been for some years now. The identity of the LA Kings is a checking team that’s difficult to play against. We feel we have to find some areas where we can create more offense, but not at the expense of what our identity is and what we’ve taken some time to create.
So, how do you do that? There’s different ways to do that. We’re going to explore every one of those and try to maximize the offense without taking away what is our greatest strength in our identity. That’s a process with deep discussions. A lot of times you can do ‘this’ and then there’s unintended consequences ‘here.’ So those those discussions have to be thought about. You have to get your staff together, work with Rob, and we’ll come to some conclusions by the time training cap rolls around.
2. Hiller on the notion that some teams and/or players are built for the regular season and some are built for the playoffs; with the Kings possibly being more of the former:
I appreciate the question. But you know, it’s a fine line. It really is a fine line. We’ve watched the playoffs and I’m sure everybody is following it. Each game, there are moments in games that are cut very fine and very thin. When you don’t win — and we didn’t win, we’ll take that responsibility. So, why not? You can go too far in trying to figure out why not. Sometimes it’s just a small detail. Sometimes it’s as much as getting to the net harder, with more determination. That detail in itself might be enough.
I think you just have to be careful delineating the playoffs and the regular season. We’re close. We’re really close, but there are things that we have to do better. There are things in the playoffs that help you win and help you score. I think getting to the net front, scoring those greasy goals is one. Can we do that better? I think so.
3. Blake on the difference between a mandate and a goal of making the playoffs, and how that changes going forward:
The idea in the conversations when Jim took over was we had a team that we knew could get in the playoffs. If we did something, we had to get back on track there. That was part of that mandate, that’s part of that whole thing. Now, what a lot of our conversations here recently have been about, I would say specifically over last week or so, we’ve talked systems, we’ve talked details, style of play, and different things. What we’ve come to realize, and Jim and I are on the same page here, there’s a certain desire to win that needs to be raised within in our team. And what that requires is [players] getting a little uncomfortable.
So we talk about getting on top of the goalie. One big thing to try to create more offense, get on top of the goalie. You can get to the hash marks, that’s five feet from the net, you can probably get there pretty safely; not get cross-checked, not get slashed, right? If you want to go two or three more feet, there’s a desire to get there and that’s going to hurt. You’re gonna get hit, you’re gonna get cross checked, but that’s how you get that job done. We talk about shooting lanes. Get in shooting lanes. We did it right from day one when the playoffs started here. You can really make it look like you’re in that shooting lane, and that misses you by an inch or two, and goes the wrong way. Or do you really want to get into that area?
So for us, the message will be systems. It will be different things that we’ll talk about. Jim will put his stamp on the team further more than when he took over. We have a clear slate going forward. But our message — we have to get uncomfortable with our group. We’ve got to do it and it starts right now, right here today with me, with Jim, right down to our players. If that’s where we want to get to [winning in the playoffs], that’s what we have to get to.
Love to win. Need to hate to lose. This has not been comfortable the last three weeks here at all. Way, way different than the last two years. I know what needs to be done in there. Jim knows what needs to be done in there. We have to start that message right now.
4. Hiller on getting more from PL Dubois:
I don’t think PL was happy with the season. I think he’s got more. That will be my job to connect with him through the summer. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him. He left for the World Championships right away and he’s playing very well. When he gets back, we’ll have a conversation. I’ve already gone into some of the video, watching him play. When you get this kind of time, you can dig in a little bit deeper. I see some statistics we’ve gathered too. He’s a player that when he’s entering the offensive zone with the puck, he’s one of our most efficient players at creating offense. But digging into it deeper, he didn’t have enough opportunities to enter the zone with the puck. Why is that? We have to get him more opportunities to enter that blue line with the puck. How do we do that? How does he do that? That’s a process that we’ll work through this summer — through video, through talking. I’m sure he’ll translate some of that on the ice. What I do know is that he’s a really good player and he wants to be a really good player. We’ll have a summer where we get a chance to work together; he’ll come back and be a good player next year. Again, I know that.
[Blake was asked a follow-up question about Dubois, not about his production, but about the engagement and compete — “We need that to be much better, for sure. When I talk about that desire and the things we want to do to accomplish goals that we’ve set in here, we have to have that from him.”]
5. Hiller on retaining the some of the power play responsibilities as the interim, and if he’ll now be handing those off to an assistant coach:
Yes, we’ll look to add to our staff. One of those roles within our group will be for somebody to have a responsibility for the power play. As the head coach, you’re involved with all aspects, but there will be somebody that has a more dedicated focus to the power play.
6. Hiller about what it means to put his stamp on the team and how that will be different than the previous regime:
First of all, I think if you look at the playoffs right now and the teams who are left, that gritty style — all those teams have those elements. So that can never go away. To reach the ultimate goal, you have to play that style. Where in other areas of the game, with the puck, can we try to create more offense? That’s really what it is. There’s no magic formula, but there are things that we can zero in on. We can watch video, we can count numbers. We can look at some areas and say, ‘This wasn’t good enough. Why wasn’t it? What can we do here to make this better?’ So that’s the stamp. There will be areas that we look at that might be subtle. Some others might be more obvious. But there will be some changes within that that we’ll have to put in place.
7. On the notion that two of the team’s three highest paid forwards don’t play together, referring to Kopitar-Fiala or Dubois-Fiala:
We’re going to look at all those things, including where do they fit within the other things. It’s quite a puzzle. Like any puzzle, when you move this piece over here, now we can’t do something else in a different area of the game because we don’t have that piece over here. So all things will be considered and then we’ll make the decisions that we believe will maximize them.
8. On Kempe and Fiala saying it would be fun to try something new when asked about the 1-3-1:
We’re gonna look at everything, that’s what I would tell you. We’re going to look at everything, but we’re not going to compromise. There are teams that are playing in the NHL playoffs right now that are playing 1-3-1 and other teams that don’t. The common theme is they play good defense, they check, so it doesn’t necessarily matter what the system is. You have to check within that system. Now, without sounding repetitive, we’ll look at the areas where we think, with our personnel, how we can maximize.
9. Hiller on how much coaching now is a collaborative process with the players versus giving a direction and they go out and execute:
I believe it is a collaboration. It really is because the athletes today, they they have a lot of information. The game is played at such a high level that there’s so many things now that they’re required to know and understand. I think you have to communicate those. There has to be a reason why. And then you have to hold them accountable to those reasons. I think once everybody can agree what that looks like, that’s one thing — the players have the hard job. They have to go out and execute, and execute at a high level. And, as Rob says, the uncomfortable level. That’s a difficult job. Our job is, within that, to make sure we hold them accountable. If they don’t think that we have their best interests at heart — as players or as a team in general, because those are two different things — then it’s not going to work. That’s why I think it’s a collaboration.
10. Hiller on weaponizing ice time as a form of accountability:
I think that happens with every coaching staff and with every team. There are expectations of certain players. During the season, different players get more, different players get less. That that just happens. Who are those players going to be? We don’t know that. A large part of that is dictated by the players and their play. So you don’t know what that looks like. We hope everybody’s playing at the top of their game. Sometimes that doesn’t happen.
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