LOS ANGELES – It’s not an uncommon sight. A struggling team makes a coaching change, the players who let that previous coach down give themselves a good, hard look in the mirror, and the new guy benefits from their increased effort – and, yes, some manner of guilt.
It had previously happened with the team the Kings were facing Saturday night. The Edmonton Oilers replaced Jay Woodcroft with Kris Knoblauch Nov. 25 after starting the season 3-9-1, and they’d won 27 of 34 since going into Saturday night, including a 16-game winning streak that was snapped in Las Vegas Tuesday night.
And maybe the Kings’ self-reflection following Todd McLellan’s firing Feb. 2, and the burst of energy that has followed in the past few days under interim coach Jim Hiller, will have a similar effect for a team that was among the league’s best in the first 23 games (16-4-3 and a league record for consecutive road victories at the start of a season, 12) and then among its dregs in the next 25 (7-11-7, and just three victories in all of January).
Consider Pierre-Luc Dubois, who was among the stars in Saturday night’s 4-0 victory over the Oilers, scoring the first goal and providing some engaged defensive play against Edmonton star Leon Draisaitl. The words “Dubois” and “defense” haven’t gone hand-in-hand much this season, but they did Saturday night.
Was McLellan’s firing the necessary shock to the Kings’ system? Here’s Exhibit A, maybe.
“When a new coach comes in, he’s got his view of how things go, and it’s kind of like a reset button,” Dubois said. “I mean, in a way, it’s like changing your goalie in a game … it’s time to wake up and to see what we’re doing wrong and to improve. It’s never easy, a coaching change, to see somebody that you’ve worked with – whether it’s three months or five years for some guys – go. But when a new coaching staff comes in, they have their message.”
The Kings had more jump from the start…
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