Takes and trash talk from both ALL sides of the NHL's most obscure PATHETIC* rivalry

* Thanks, Kevin Lowe!

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Kings Coaching Shuffle

So I'm little late on this, but the Kings have brought back Mark Hardy to coach the blueline and the penalty kill. Hardy was previously with the team under Andy Murray and did a pretty good job coaching our penalty kill while he was here. Plus, he laid this hit in the '93 finals, which was definitely charging but I don't care:





The interesting thing about this move is that apparently Terry Murray didn't have too much to do with this hire. At Inside the Kings, Hardy mentioned that he and Murray haven't talked before. That seems weird and kind of points to Lombardi taking a more direct role in the organization. I don't know if that's good or not.

The Kings also promoted Jamie Kompon (whose previous title was "Coach Who Has to Talk to Tom Murray Between Periods") and Nelson Emerson. They were the two that dealt with prospects and the younger players, so it makes sense to keep them on. Mark Johnston was offered a job within the organization but he didn't accept. It probably didn't make sense to keep him around, seeing as he was the runner-up to Terry Murray. Also fired was Dave Lewis. I don't think Mathieu Schneider would have been comfortable coming here if Dave Lewis was still with the team.

2 comments:

Earl Sleek said...

So I'm little late on this

Nonsense! I'm still going to write a piece about Jonas Hiller's extension, even though that happened like two months ago and even Anaheim fans probably don't care.

James Mirtle said...

Organizations often have assistant coaches that come in (or are already there) without the head coach's input. Generally, they get to pick part of their staff and the GM helps with that process, but this would have been something Murray discussed when interviewing for the job.