Is bringing back Jim Hiller the right move for the LA Kings?

The Los Angeles Kings announced that they’ve removed the interim tag off of Jim Hiller’s coaching title, and he will now be the Kings head coach for next season. With some interesting candidates on the market, there was some question as to whether or not they would look elsewhere, but in the end, they opted to keep him in the role.

But was it the right call? Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen discussed whether or not Hiller will be a good long-term fit for the Kings on Daily Faceoff Live.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I don’t know if this is the right call. We heard players throughout the year saying they don’t like the 1-3-1, they think they had to change things up. You heard it post-elimination and in their locker room clean-up day saying it might be fun to try something new.

Is bringing back the same guy the right move? I know he was only there for a few months, so maybe they want to get him like a full offseason to instill his own systems. But I feel like if there’s any team that got bounced in the first couple of rounds that could have used a bit of an organizational shakeup, it’s the Kings.

Colby Cohen: Look, 21-12-1 is a pretty good record for your first time as a head coach in the NHL. The problem with the 1-3-1 is that it has a short lifespan. We see that the LA Kings are so good at it for the first half of the season, and then guys don’t want to play it anymore. It sucks the joy out of playing because there’s no creativity to it, it’s very robotic. Now my assumption would be that Jim Hiller said that he doesn’t want to coach the 1-3-1 and wants to open things up and go to a new system.

I started looking up Hiller’s career, because I’m not that familiar with it to be honest, and one thing that stuck out to me was that he’s not bounced around year to year. He’s generally stayed in the same places for three or four seasons throughout his coaching career. He spent eight years in the WHL as a head coach way back with the Chilliwack Bruins and a couple with the Tri-City Americans. And then he comes to the NHL and he spends four years with the Toronto Maple Leafs, four years with the New York Islanders, and then two and a half years with the Kings before he gets an opportunity to be head coach.

I’m all for giving someone who’s not a retread an opportunity to be a head coach. 21-12-1 shows me that you have a level of competence that you can coach behind the bench. I think the Kings probably saw enough, I think the players probably gave him some bit of a blessing in the turnout of his meetings. I think you’re going to see a different style you’re not going to see a strict 1-3-1 type of situation in the neutral zone next year.

You can watch the full episode here…