Exclusive Interview – Extended, 1-on-1 Sitdown w/ Head Coach Jim Hiller

Happy Monday, Insiders!

Pretty crazy that if I asked you if you were excited about the Kings scoring seven goals, you’d have to ask me which game I was talking about! Not too shabby a weekend when the Kings score 14 goals in 30 hours.

Team day off today, so sharing an longer-form content piece for you all. I had the opportunity a couple of weeks back to sit down the Kings Head Coach Jim Hiller 1-on-1. The interview took place the week after the trade deadline, so around 10 days ago. I believe it was coming off the Washington win, so for context, this conversation happened during that homestand, before the win over Nashville, before the 1-1 roadtrip against Minnesota and Chicago and before the back-to-back, seven-goal showings this weekend against Carolina and Boston.

For context, the premise here was a bigger-picture overview of where the Kings were at entering the stretch run, while also discussing the impact of the Trade Deadline from the position of the Head Coach.

I believe that a lot of the information remains pretty relevant. Where Jim Hiller feels his team is at with the stretch-run towards the playoffs firmly underway. How he believes the team has adopted an identity here over the course of the season. How it took 60 or so games to find the ideal alignment but now, assuming full health, that the Kings seem to have found the right mix of pieces going forward. How he has seen and is seeing Andrei Kuzmenko start to fit in with the group and how he sees Kuzmenko fitting in with the team, both at even strength and on the power play. How early he starts to really look at the standings and how he sees the Kings stacking up in the Pacific Division. The importance of continuing to find success down the stretch, understanding what is at stake.

The interview above is unedited….minus a re-do on the first question where I think we both needed the reset haha. From the second, first question on, the interview was shot straight through without any re-dos or edited clips. There are definitely other questions that I could’ve asked or maybe even wanted to, but for this interview specifically, the goal was to keep the conversation larger picture. Certainly could have gone more granular with regards to certain players or facets of the team, but for this one, the objective was to take it in a certain direction.

Would appreciate a watch/listen and any feedback you might have! Would also like to ask if this is content you all would be interested in more of going forward?

While my primary objective here is to continue to pump out articles from a written standpoint, I see the content world as constantly changing and there is value in audio and video content as well. We could certainly look into getting more of these style of interviews shot going forward, whether it be with players, coaches, executives or people from throughout the hockey community. An Insider segment, if you will. I enjoyed doing it and it felt pretty solid overall. But hey, there’s always room for improvement and I am here for it all!

No practice today, so no practice report to follow. Working on a couple of stories in the pipeline for the coming week, but as noted before the weekend got underway, games are hot and heavy, so game content will carry the storyline here with a 4-in-6 coming up beginning tomorrow evening against New York!