LA Kings Ax Their Coach

After much speculation on Kings blogs over the past several weeks and a final hatchet from Helene Elliott at the LA Times yesterday reporting that the

"Kings executives are poised to dismiss Coach Terry Murray this week,"

they finally do the inevitable. The Kings coach of over 3 years was officially let go today, via the Kings official blog. John Stevens, the previous assistant coach, has been named the interim coach until a long term replacement can be found. Much will be said over the coming days over who should be the replacement, but I will defer to the King offical blog reporter Rich Hammond who speculates that Darryl Sutter may be in our sights.

Keep an eye on the whereabouts of Darryl Sutter in the next few days. Dean Lombardi is very close with Sutter and, as GM in San Jose, hired Sutter in 1997. Sutter left the coaching ranks after the 2005-06 season, as he went from coach/GM to GM, and he left that role last December. I’ll never forget the exchange I had with Lombardi, at the press conference to announce his hiring as Kings’ GM in 2006. It went like this…

Question: “In terms of qualities, what will you be looking for in a coach?”

Lombardi: “Darryl.”

Something had to be done. The Kings are way too talented to be playing so poorly. Besides, you had to figure it wouldn't work out considering the haircut Terry Murray once sported in the 70's (see the vintage card above) That's just embarrassing. Fortunately, the Kings are still in the thick of the race and can easily bounce back to meet the expectations placed on them early on in the season.