Breaking: Kings make a shocking announcement regarding their new interim head coach!

I made two predictions after it was revealed that the Los Angeles Kings were making a coaching change and I was way off on both counts.

First and foremost for those of you who missed our previous report the Los Angeles Kings made a major announcement on Sunday morning in California when they revealed that they were firing head coach John Stevens effective immediately. Along with Stevens the Kings also made the move to fire his assistant coach Don Nachbaur and that move raised a few eyebrows due to the fact that he was the only assistant coach fired on this day. 

In fact it was for that very reason that I suspected there was at least a chance that assistant coach Dave Lowry could be named as the next interim head coach of the Los Angeles Kings organization but that proved to be incorrect. The good news for Lowry however is that it appears he will be keeping his job at least for the foreseeable future in spite of the poor results the team has produced under him and the rest of the Kings previous coaching staff.

"This is a critical time in our season and our results to date have fallen well below our expectations. With that in mind, this was a difficult decision but one we feel was necessary," said general manager Rob Blake as per the Kings official website. "We have a great deal of respect and appreciation for John's time with our organization. He was a key part of our past success, and we have tremendous gratitude for his many contributions."

My other prediction for a potential was head coach Alain Vigneault, most recently of the New York Rangers. That guess on my part came from the fact that Vigneault was reportedly being considered for a number of potential head coaching jobs after teams began the season with a very poor start, most notably the Kings themselves as well as the Edmonton Oilers. I was however wrong again when it comes to Vigneault. 

Instead the Kings shocked just about everyone when they announced that it would be former Vancouver Canucks head coach Willie Dejardins who would take over as the new head coach of the Kings organization. One of the big criticism of Desjardins in Vancouver was that he underutilized some of the organizations younger talent, but given that the Kinds are primarily loaded with veteran players that likely will be less of an issue in Los Angeles. Only time will tell if he can help turn this ship around however.