T1B

Finally!!!!

Dave Taylor has seen enough of the Kings horrible performance the second half and has canned Andy Murray and assistant John Van Boxmeer. (responsible for the crappy power play)

John Torchetti is the interm coach, he coached Florida at the end of 03-04.

Anyone have a scouting report on Torchetti as a coach?

A playoff team firing their coach. Baffling.

At least the post-coach-firing-hot-streak should help boost the Kings into the post-season.

I like Andy Murray, think he did an excellent job with the Kings over his tenure. But the time had come, the team wasn't responding and have been pretty horrible. He should get another chance.

Brilliant idea!

Sincerely,
the Devils


The Kings are getting bit by the injury bug again...why does Murray have to take the fall? Plus, they still don't have a legit goalie. Mathieu Garon doesn't strike a lot of fear in me if I run into the Kings in the playoffs. Taylor better hope this inspires his team because they're on the verge of falling out of the playoffs all together.

Speaking of the Devils, I can see Murray coaching them next season. Or the Isles, he will get another job at the NHL level.

Murray took the fall because teams know exactly what they are going to do. Lots of dump and chase, a power play with no inspiration, a team that is too passive and doesn't like to drop the gloves.

Doesn't like to drop the gloves? The Kings are third in the league with 41 fighting majors. In contrast...the Wings are dead last with 4. They seem to do pretty well without an enforcer.

Cross Traffic wrote:Anyone have a scouting report on Torchetti as a coach?

I would guess that he's Italian.

The one thing that has stood out to me since Murray took aver as coach of the Kings is their knack for leading the league in injuries. I don't know what the numbers are, but I would guess that Murray has lost more guys to injury than any other coach in the last seven years. Is that Murray's fault? It's hard to say, but I have been hearing whispers(from locals) that part of the Kings injury problems were from Murray driving the team too hard.

Another part of Murray's tenure that stands out to me is that the one year they were pretty healthy(2001) the Kings had the best regular season in franchise history.

The scuttlebutt is that Taylor went to the players and they wanted him gone. I guess Murray is a workaholic and the players wanted no part of that.

I think it draws comparisons to Fedoruk getting turfed by Jersey. Kings fan can take some measure of comfort that Jersey went on to win the cup.

I heard Dave Taylor on ESPN radio today and he pretty much said that he wanted to bring in a coach that was "more of a motivator and communicator". To me, that says "we couldn't fire the team".

The Kings made a PR move plain and simple. Even if they make the playoffs, the team is garbage without it's star players and so-so with them.

Shoalzie, most of those fighting majors are from Sean Avery, a middleweight, whose mouth gets him into fights instead of fighting to protect teammates.

I would have to agree about the injury thing, Kings have changed strength and conditioning coaches and they have had the same problem. Murray's constant shifting of lines (Avery on the first line against the Avs....genius) never let players gel with one another, with the sole exception of the Deadmarsh/Allison/Palffy line.