Stevens, players talk about next step

The coach’s seat, for now, still belongs to John Stevens, who is expected to be behind the bench when the Kings play Columbus tomorrow. After today’s practice, and after Dean Lombardi met with players, Stevens said he’s aware that his status could change at any time, and that the Kings could hire a permanent coach, but Stevens said, “As of right now, I don’t anticipate that happening by tomorrow night.’’ The leading candidate — and the only known candidate, for that matter — is Darryl Sutter, and if the players have been spending a lot of time in recent days talking about Sutter, well, they’ve done a good job of masking it. Anze Kopitar, asked about Sutter, wasn’t totally sure whether he was being asked about Darryl, Brent or one of the 428 other Sutters to come through the NHL.

KOPITAR: “Well, we all know that it’s out in the media that he’s the, one of the candidates for this job, but we can’t look into that. We can’t worry about that. We just have to worry about what we can control.’’

Jarret Stoll, asked about the likely sea of change about to come the Kings’ way, said the players are trying to minimize distractions…

STOLL: “As a team, as a group, we don’t want to worry about, think about, dwell on all the negatives or everything that’s surrounding this team outside the dressing room. We’ve got to worry about inside the dressing room and that’s it, period. That means, how we get ready for games, how we play on the ice and how we come together and try to win hockey games. We can’t worry about the media articles, trying to hire a new coach, whatever the case may be. That’s the outside, that we don’t need to worry about, the distractions that we don’t need to worry about. And we’ll get out of it, just from everybody in here together pulling together. That’s the only way we’ll get out of it.’’

Then there’s Stevens, who is in the most difficult of spots. Not only is Stevens, as interim coach, trying to keep things together in the moment, he also has no assurance that the next coach will retain him. Stevens was asked today, essentially, why it’s worth it, to put forth the effort as interim coach…

STEVENS: “I have an obligation to the L.A. Kings here. I’m an employee of the L.A. Kings and I’m indebted to try to help this team win. If they want me to run the team for a short period of time, then I think it’s my obligation to do so. Nobody feels more guilty than me that we’re in this situation. A good man got let go, and I feel as responsible for that as anybody else. I think any time your team struggles, you want to stay together and get through it. It’s no different than when I was in Philadelphia. I wanted to stay. The team struggles and you want to stay and turn it around. You believe you can make it happen. You believe that you get through those hard times and you come out stronger on the other side. But those changes get made, and when your boss asks you to do something, you change your responsibility, and I’m sure it could change again, obviously. That’s what we do. I’m a hockey man. I care about the players on this team and I care about the organization. I’m willing to do what’s asked.’’

Stevens was asked if he had been in touch with Murray since Monday’s firing. He has not and, for the record, I also attempted to contact Murray and haven’t heard back yet.

STEVENS: “I left him a couple messages. He got out of town real quick and got back home. Having gone through this situation myself, I think it’s good to remove yourself from the game and get your thoughts in order before you start returning a lot of phone calls. The one thing you find out in these situations is that the support of the hockey community is probably second to none. With the respect that he has in the hockey world, I would suspect that my call was one of thousands.’’