Kings hire Peter Laviolette, replacing interim D.J. Smith after Jim Hiller dismissal in March

The Los Angeles Kings are reportedly making a major change at the top of their coaching staff, hiring Peter Laviolette as head coach and moving on from interim D.J. Smith. The decision, reported Monday, June 8, follows the midseason dismissal of Jim Hiller, which led to Smith taking over on an interim basis starting March 1, 2026.

Smith’s interim run mattered because it came at the end of a season in which the Kings were already searching for answers. According to Sportsnet, Los Angeles was swept by the Colorado Avalanche in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, a result that intensified pressure to adjust quickly rather than continue building through another coaching cycle.

The coaching path to this point also shows how quickly the Kings wanted a different look. reported that Hiller was fired on March 1, 2026, after the team’s on-ice struggles intensified near the end of the regular season. Smith, previously on the Kings staff, was named interim head coach immediately after that change, completing the internal handoff that kept the bench from having to start over midstream.

Laviolette’s appeal in a job like this is his track record of managing high-stakes rosters. Before this reported move to Los Angeles, New York Rangers President and general manager Chris Drury announced Laviolette had coached more than 1,400 NHL games as a head coach across multiple franchises, including the Islanders, Hurricanes, Flyers, Predators, Capitals, and Rangers. He was most recently fired by the Rangers after two seasons, ending that run in 2025-26 rather than extending it into another postseason.

For the Kings, the fit will be less about whether Laviolette has experience and more about whether his system can align with Los Angeles’s current roster and development priorities. His hiring also suggests the organization believes it can shorten the time it takes to stabilize, especially after a playoff exit that came quickly. Still, there are structural questions that do not vanish with a new voice behind the bench, including whether the team’s forward group and defensive structure can consistently generate the shot quality and defensive response required against the league’s top competition.

The immediate watch items are practical. First, the Kings will need to define how Laviolette wants to handle game management, defensive detail, and special teams, then see whether those choices show up early in training camp. Second, Smith will be evaluated in context: he was an internal option who inherited a difficult moment, and whether the Kings view him as having laid groundwork or not will shape the rest of the staff reshuffling. Finally, this hire tees up the larger 2026-27 question of whether the organization is truly ready to convert its talent into deeper playoff runs, or whether another correction will be required before the roster’s current window closes.