Los Angeles Kings head coach Jim Hiller gestures from the bench during the third period on Dec. 29 in Denver. (AP file photo)

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The Los Angeles Kings haven’t been the same team this season following their fourth straight first-round playoff exit, and general manager Ken Holland decided a coaching shakeup was the last chance to snap this team out of its funk.

The Kings fired coach Jim Hiller on Sunday after losing five of their past six games and falling out of playoff position. D.J. Smith was named the interim replacement for the rest of the season in the first coaching change by Holland, who kept Hiller behind the bench when he took over the front office last May.

“We’ve underperformed,” Holland said at the Kings’ training complex. “I’m hoping that the move will do a couple of things. One, kind of jolt the team (to) respond, and two, (provide) a little bit of a different message. I know when D.J. met the players today, he told them it’s going to be a clean slate. We’re hoping the team will respond.”

Hiller was a star scorer on the 1991 Northern Michigan University national championship team, the only title won by the Wildcats. He had 22 goals and 41 assists for 63 points as the team finished 38-5-4 with its 8-7 triple-overtime victory over Boston University for the national title on March 30, 1991, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Player development coach Matt Greene, who won two Stanley Cup rings as a Kings defenseman, is also joining Smith’s staff as an assistant.

Hiller was in just his second full season in charge of the Kings, who looked lifeless Thursday in an 8-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers — the team that also sent Los Angeles home early from the past four Stanley Cup playoffs. Fans broke into repeated chants of “Fire Hiller!” while the Oilers poured it on in the second and third periods of Los Angeles’ largest defeat of the season by far.

One night earlier, the Kings allowed five goals in the third period of an embarrassing 6-4 loss to short-handed Vegas in both teams’ first game back from the Olympic break.

A 2-0 win over Calgary on Saturday was not enough to change the mind of Holland, who said he decided to make the move after the Edmonton debacle. He waited until Sunday because of the schedule, informing Hiller in the morning before Smith ran practice.

The Kings (24-21-14) are still in playoff contention despite falling three points behind Seattle for the final wild-card spot in the West and for fourth place in the Pacific Division entering Sunday’s games. But everyone agrees Los Angeles has taken a significant step back on both ends of the ice during this inconsistent, laborious season.

Hiller went 93-58-24 with the Kings and made the playoffs twice, but never won a postseason series. Los Angeles tied its franchise records for victories (48) and points (105) last year in its first full campaign under Hiller, but the Kings landed in yet another first-round matchup with the Oilers — and Connor McDavid sent them packing yet again in six games.

The 56-year-old Hiller was a longtime NHL assistant who got his first chance to lead a team when the Kings promoted him to replace the fired Todd McLellan in February 2024. He righted their season and got the Kings to the playoffs, but they lost in the first round to Edmonton — just as they had in each of the previous two seasons under McLellan.

Hiller maintained McLellan’s commitment to defense-first hockey as the Kings’ primary identity, even if it sometimes meant playing a boring style for fans. Los Angeles is 29th in the NHL this season with 2.53 goals per game.

Holland addressed the Kings’ offensive deficiencies by acquiring high-scoring Artemi Panarin in a big trade with the Rangers before the break, but days later, they lost star forward Kevin Fiala for the season when he broke his leg while playing for Switzerland at the Olympics. Los Angeles also lost forward Andrei Kuzmenko to knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus on Saturday, and Holland indicated that Kuzmenko could be out for the rest of the regular season, if not longer.

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