EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Four wins in a row back in early November. Three wins in a row in late January. That’s it.
Believing the Los Angeles Kings will run off any kind of a lengthy victory streak this season, when piecing together two straight has been a Herculean task, is more of a fool’s errand left to ride-or-die supporters with the rosiest-colored glasses. As Jim Hiller did before him two years ago, D.J. Smith has stepped into an interim boss situation and is being asked to get the Kings into the postseason. What is different for the 48-year-old Smith is there are fewer games to be played by a worse team that’s plagued with injuries.
Being four points out of a playoff spot doesn’t seem like a lot, but Smith’s Kings are in quicksand trying to grab onto the nearest branch. But that reality didn’t keep the former Ottawa Senators head coach from attacking what’s likely an impossible mission with gusto.
Energy has been a key term around the Kings since Smith moved from an associate coach role into the seat formerly occupied by his good friend Hiller, who was fired Sunday. They’re determined to find more of it than what’s been apparent in both the losses that sealed Hiller’s fate, and most of a season that’s been haunted by last spring’s playoff loss to the Edmonton Oilers.
And with that, the first order of business for the lively Smith was to restore confidence and “swagger” in his fragile group.
“Well, I think what happens is when you’re losing you know guys get down and when you get down you don’t have energy,” said Smith, who came to L.A. when Hiller was hired to replace Todd McLellan midway through the 2023-24 season. “When you have energy, typically it’s when you are feeling good and typically when you have energy it’s when you are thinking positive. The power of positivity is a big thing and it’s real. Now you got to earn it. Can’t just say it.”
Smith’s first game as head coach came in Monday night’s 4-2 loss to the NHL-leading Colorado Avalanche, a decidedly tougher assignment than Saturday’s squeeze past the Calgary Flames. His lineup didn’t have a laundry list of regulars: Kevin Fiala and Andrei Kuzmenko are both out for the season, Drew Doughty and Joel Armia are day-to-day, Darcy Kuemper and Trevor Moore are sick. And an ailing Quinton Byfield was a late scratch.
Asking a short-handed club to rip off a string of wins and climb over three teams for a wild-card berth when lasting success was elusive when it was healthy is impossible. But the goal of simply finding more energy was met against the Avalanche. And it was the Kings’ young reinforcements that provided the boost.
In what appeared to be the first sign of acceptance that this wildly disappointing season can’t be salvaged, the Kings brought up defenseman Angus Booth and forwards Kenny Connors and Jared Wright for their NHL debuts. That made for quite a unique sight when the solo lap reserved for a rookie’s first game in the pre-game skate became a trio lap.
What followed was an injection of life by three youngsters from the AHL’s Ontario Reign. A renewed Kings team got physical with the Avs even if it was outmanned. Connors and Wright skated purposefully and finished in the positive on their 5-on-5 shifts while creating some good offensive chances. Booth provided an emotional lift when he hung around the Colorado net and neatly redirected a cross-ice feed from Brian Dumoulin past Avs goalie Mackenzie Blackwood for a 2-2 tie in the second period.
The 21-year-old fourth-round pick in 2022 became the fourth defenseman in Kings history to score in his first NHL game. He scored only seven times across four seasons in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League and just three times in 73 AHL games.
“I think it’s a lot to soak up the moment,” Booth said. “I’m still just living it right now. But I think once everything dies down and I go home, I’ll really just be lost for words really like I am right now. It was really special. Honestly, I don’t remember a whole lot from that goal. Even the game went really fast and it was a lot of fun.”
Added Connors, who had a team-leading four shots on goal: “Felt good. It was exciting. Not just for me. My parents, my sister. A lot of my family members and people that helped me get here. Coaches and friends and teammates. Just an exciting day overall. Kind of a culmination of a lot of smaller things that led to this.”
The energy Smith sought didn’t just come from the newest kids on the block. The Kings were throwing their weight around at all corners of the rink. Crunching hits were delivered, with the fourth line of Jeff Malott, Samuel Helenius and Taylor Ward setting an example in trying to disrupt the speedy and skilled Avalanche.
What they didn’t have was enough firepower to hold off the Avs, who turned the Kings in circles for a tiebreaking finish by Devon Toews from Nathan MacKinnon with 4:55 left. Eight Kings wins in 23 games since the calendar flipped to 2026 won’t make for a playoff push. And while they have 11 home games left, the Kings are 9-14-7 at Crypto.com Arena, as opposed to their league-best 31-6-4 home mark last season.
The Kings did show on Monday that they’ve got some fight left in them. They still made mistakes, but played with fire and passion.
“What we wanted to establish is a sense of work ethic, a sense of physicality,” Smith said. “A sense of we’re not going to sit back. We’re going to come get you. And I think we did all those things tonight. You need the points for sure but at this point, you can’t fault the effort. And we’re going to need that every game.”
More energy will come from Smith himself. Mikey Anderson said the coach that ran the defense until Sunday’s job change has an unmistakable presence. “He’s very loud, direct, which I think is good,” Anderson said. “You know what he’s thinking, what he expects from the group.”
“He said it to us, we’re not going to get outworked,” the Kings’ defenseman added. “We want to make sure we’re putting our best foot forward. You know whatever happens, happens, but give ourselves the best chance to win each night.”
Now more than two years removed from when he was fired by the Senators after four-plus seasons, Smith has plenty of motivation to finish strong. If he can lift this low-scoring, injury-riddled club to a miraculous finish and grab a playoff spot, it would certainly help his chance to have the interim tag removed, just as Hiller’s 21-12-1 run did in 2023-24.
And even if they fall short, a respectable showing in a tough situation could boost his job prospects in the offseason. Smith was on the head coaching radar last year, interviewing for multiple openings and getting far down the line with the Pittsburgh Penguins, who ultimately went with Dan Muse to replace Mike Sullivan.
“I’ve coached for a long time, and I think the Ottawa situation was a rebuild situation where I had a bunch of young guys and this is a different time, a different situation,” Smith said. “I’m older now, I’ve been in the league a lot longer now. You don’t react the same to things. You also see a little bit more of what works, what doesn’t work. What you don’t let bother you. All those things that come with why general managers want coaches that have coached before. And I can see why after going through it, you take a lot away from that experience.
“But ultimately, the job of the coach is to get the team to play hard and play right every night. I believe the structure’s in place here to do so. Now my job as a coach is to put the right people in those particular situations. And if it hasn’t worked, I got to try something new. When you come in like this, the big thing is to try and get the confidence going.”