Head Coach Jim Hiller | 02.13.24 LA Kings face Buffalo Sabres | Morning Media Availability

Head Coach Jim Hiller | 02.13.24 LA Kings face Buffalo Sabres | Morning Media Availability

Jimmy as we’ve gone around the room a lot of guys have started to use the same kind of principles that you have really focusing in on like work ethic is that an encouraging sign that the guys are really bought into the things that you’re trying to push through well yeah

I mean again I think our identity the LA Kings identity and that’s certainly one of them you think you go all the way back to winning the Stanley Cups that’s where it started for them you know and then uh it’s rolled right through we got offense so we weren we’re we’re saying

The right thing but the things that we’re saying are are principles that have been long-standing principles for the Kings so you had a analytics video company before years back I’m so I’m curious how how do you incorporate data now into your coaching you know that the

DAT is better and the players kind of understanding uh not much at all to be honest with you and that and that uh you know what you’re talking about there you know I’ve mentioned this before everybody says analytics I I don’t see it as that those guys were watching

Hockey and and doing something a little bit different so they were uh there was nothing that they were pulling as far as data they were just watching hockey and starting to create some of their own data so um I don’t lean on it very heavily at all to be honest with you I

Uh I watch and uh we talk about it we looked at some of the larger samples but it’s nothing that I would tell these guys too specifically do do you interact with the analytic staff though yeah I do for sure yeah yeah oh yeah no I I I see

Value for sure and we talk about it but try not to bring too many of those types of conversations into the players guys have been praising DJ Smith’s energy how have you noticed his acclamation process um kind of coming about over these last few days well I knew it was going to be

Easy I spent a lot of time with him and and you guys have seen and definitely heard him I’m sure already uh he’s just that personality where where he’s fun to be around he’s got lots of energy uh funny guy so I I knew that that that

Would be seamless and I think you know beyond uh you know the stuff he’s adding on the hockey side I just think that’s just good energy over a long season just to keep people’s spirits up and laughing and and getting in the right frame of mind Jim a couple weeks ago you played

Buffalo Kings had a 3-1 lead early Buffalo came back in that game as you look back on it was it something that Buffalo did better after they fell behind or was there something the Kings weren’t doing as well it’s a good question Nick because you now that’s the

Same team as we’re going to see tonight they can burn you and if you think back to those goals they were off the rush so it was us a lot of times turning the puck over and they’re as good as anybody if you turn the puck over getting up ice

Activating a d and making plays off the rush uh as good as any team in the league so that would be something that uh we just simply cannot do and we knew that going into that game we got off it a little bit and once they started

Coming it’s hard to put the finger back in the Dy so we got to make sure that we don’t let them get that type of game established you look at the start of tonight’s game are there one or two things that you look for on like the

First run through or two run throughs of shifts that you can say all right we kind of have what we need tonight well we want we want energy we want to see our Wingers in particular our Wingers because we believe we’ve got really fast Wingers we want to see our Wingers

Chasing down pucks hunting defenseman or in front of the defenseman where they got to hunt us because we’ve outs skated them and I’ll just go back I know it’s been one game but the Edmonton game there was a number of times you probably noticed where our Winger where did he

Come from and he’s behind that D or he’s right on that that for me is probably the best indicator if we’ve got our legs and if we’re doing things uh the way we want them right out of the gate