On Monday January 20, 2025, the Los Angeles Kings hosted the Pittsburgh Penguinslosing 5-1 in regulation time.
Many fans were quick to consider this one of the worst games of the season for Los Angeles; a sentiment that Kings head coach Jim Hiller echoed during his postgame press conference, summing up the contest in one word: “disappointing.”
“I can tell you… I can probably count, maybe, only five times where I have been disappointed with our team (…) this season. Tonight was one of them; perhaps the most. – Kings head coach Jim Hiller after the loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, January 20, 2025
I made reference in the Game Thirty-Three Preview: Jets @ Kings that former NHL head coach Dave Tippett, best known for his time with the Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes, once said (and I’m paraphrasing): “as a head coach, you can’t give a kicking the locker room trash can only three times a week. season before the boys go offline. “
Essentially, coaches need to be calculated when expressing or displaying their frustration with the team.
In this article, I assumed Hiller made his first kick after the 7-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks on November 25, 2024.
Although Hiller called Monday’s loss “disappointing,” I don’t think it resulted in a second garbage time.
Think about it like this… When a child makes a mistake, you’ll hear a parent say, “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed.” » For me, kicking the trash happens when you’re not just angry, you’re furious!
Hiller’s disappointment with how the team played Monday isn’t something he necessarily needed to display. Rather, it is a chance for the boys to experience their own coming-to-Jesus moment.
Which they apparently did.
After the match, Kings captain Anze Kopitar made it clear that the team needs to improve going forward.
“It definitely wasn’t our game tonight. From top to bottom, we have done nothing. Even when (we scored) the power play goal, they (came) back immediately and scored the fourth, which turned out to be a big goal. (…) We just weren’t good enough, that’s the main thing. From top to bottom, left to right, the game wasn’t there. – Anze Kopitar after the loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, January 20, 2025
Kopitar acknowledged that “so far, (the Kings) haven’t played a lot of games like these. This is probably the only game, overall, that looks like this. We’ve had a few tough times here and there. But I think for the most part we’ve been pretty accurate.
Monday’s loss wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t so bad that the guard had to collect overtime pay.
From what I saw, the Kings had their chances but couldn’t capitalize on them. Was it a bad loss? Yes. Could it be considered the worst game of the season? Of course. But did that warrant a kick in the trash? No.
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