Kings promote John Stevens to head coach
L.A. hockey club cleaned house after missing playoffs
The Los Angeles Kings have named associate head coach John Stevens their next head coach.
Stevens replaces Darryl Sutter after serving as a Kings assistant and then associate coach for the past eight seasons, which included two Stanley Cups. He was interim head coach for four games in 2011-12 after Terry Murray was fired and before Sutter was hired.
The 50-year-old was long considered Sutter's eventual replacement, though the firing of general manager Dean Lombardi and Sutter earlier this month put everything into question. When assistant Davis Payne was fired, the door was open to promoting Stevens.
It's official! <br>Release: <a href="https://t.co/0tnhQdGuGQ">https://t.co/0tnhQdGuGQ</a> <a href="https://t.co/RN67BjGjBa">pic.twitter.com/RN67BjGjBa</a>
—@LAKingsStevens spent parts of four seasons as coach of the Philadelphia Flyers (2006-2009), reaching the playoffs twice including a trip to the Eastern Conference final. In 2005, he won the Calder Cup as coach of the American Hockey League's Philadelphia Phantoms, the team he led to that title as captain in 1998.
The shift from a hard-nosed disciplinarian like Sutter to a players' coach like Stevens is a drastic one for Los Angeles, which has missed the playoffs in two of the past three years after winning the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014. When Lombardi and Sutter were fired, Rob Blake was named GM.
"We believe John has the ideal qualities to lead our hockey club," Blake said in a news release. "His wide array of coaching experience, including success as an NHL head coach and his inherent knowledge of our players and those in our development system, is very appealing to us. We are confident he is the best person to lead our hockey club forward."
Challenges lie ahead
Stevens' greatest task will be finding new ways to generate offence from largely the same roster for a low-scoring team that was focused on defence-first, two-way hockey during Sutter's largely successful tenure. Los Angeles' 201 goals this season — down 24 from last season — were tied for the fifth fewest in the NHL.
Blake opened his tenure in charge by identifying scoring as the single most important factor for the Kings in the upcoming seasons.
"John and I had very productive dialogue this last week in relation to his head coaching philosophy and specifically how he would implement a strategy to activate our players offensively while maintaining the defensive philosophies we have come to be known for," Blake said. "I am confident that we are both in agreement on how that can be executed."