Not long after Montreal traded Sean Monahan to Winnipeg (fantasy take can be read here), the Los Angeles Kings announced they fired coach Todd McLellan. Despite a win heading into the All-Star break, the Kings had just three wins in their previous 17 games as their hot start was a distant memory. His replacement is Jim Hiller, who was an assistant under McLellan. Hiller had been helping out with the power play over the last couple of seasons, so he's definitely familiar with what their top stars can and cannot do with the puck.

When looking to why a coach gets fired, the first question is always "what went wrong?" The answer is usually goaltending, and their team save percentage was .897 in that span, so it was definitely worse than earlier in the season. That mark is still in the middle of the league, though, and better in that span than teams like Toronto, Dallas, Colorado, Tampa Bay, and Nashville. None of those teams fired their coach, so there was more going on.

When thinking about defencemen and their impact on results, there should be more focus on the weak links than the strong ones; there is a reason Colorado gave Cale Makar, Devon Toews, and Bowen Byram heavy minutes at 5-on-5 during their Stanley Cup run while Jack Johnson got 11 minutes a game overall, when he got into the lineup at all.

Since December 6^th, the Kings have been outscored 55-41 at 5-on-5. With Andreas Englund on the ice, they were outscored 21-8. That means in all the 5-on-5 minutes not played by Englund, Los Angeles actually outscored the opposition 34-33.

A big point of contention from Kings fans seems to be the fact that Englund does not get scratched while Jordan Spence does. The reason, it's assumed, is because the team does not want four right-handed shots among their six defencemen. It is an understandable request, but at a certain point, if the team is getting outscored by nearly a 3-1 margin for one-third of the season, maybe a change should be made. Had it been made a month ago, McLellan may still be the coach.

It isn't all Englund, though. The team's offence has mostly evaporated. In those 26 games since December 6^th, the top line of Quinton Byfield, Anze Kopitar, and Adrian Kempe has scored just 2.1 goals/60 minutes at 5-on-5, a stark drop from the 3.5 goals/60 they scored up to that point. It isn't just bad luck, either, as their expected goals-for rate dropped from 3.17/60 to 2.03/60. That span has seen Kempe and Kopitar combine for 0.91 expected goals/60 minutes, which is less than Blake Lizotte by himself. They are creating much worse quality on offence, which has crushed their scoring and turned their dominant top line into a checking line that is getting too much ice time. Kempe's high shooting percentage has saved whatever meagre offensive output they've mustered.

There will be blame on Pierre-Luc Dubois as well, but it's worth noting his current primary points/60 at 5-on-5 is higher than any season in Winnipeg. With Viktor Arvidsson's return around the corner, it'll be interesting to see if the team can muster a third scoring line. The pieces are there, they just need to stay healthy and find some offensive chemistry.

The three priorities for Hiller are:

• Get the top line going offensively
• Figure out the third defence pair and where (if) Englund fits
• Get a true third line assembled

For the new coach, all those things are eminently possible. The top line has had a lot of success dating back to last season, there are several good defencemen on the roster, and there is enough forward depth to ice three good-to-great lines. Whether anything gets fixed, well, the next two months will tell the tale, but this is far from a hopeless scenario. Fantasy managers would welcome a return to the norms of November than those of January.