Kings lower expectations for Terry Murray

The Kings officially went subterranean on Thursday.

There are low expectations, to be sure, for a defensively challenged, playoff-missing hockey team. But Kings President and General Manager Dean Lombardi went deep at a news conference in El Segundo introducing Coach Terry Murray.

Lombardi called Murray’s new assignment the “toughest job in the NHL.”

He might as well have said: ‘Well, Terry, we’re not in Philadelphia anymore.’ Even if Bobby Clarke of the Flyers did send Kings assistant GM Ron Hextall a text message, saying: “Flyers West.”

Murray, who will be making $2.65 million over three years with the Kings, had been an assistant with the Flyers, which is where he most recently crossed paths with Lombardi. Previously, Murray was head coach with the Flyers and coached Hextall there.

In any event, Murray, learning quickly on the job, picked up on Lombardi’s bar-lowering theme, saying: “It’s going to be hard. I know that. There’s going to be some very hard nights, very long nights.”

And certainly not after April 11.

Why April 11? That’s the Kings’ regular-season finale, against the San Jose Sharks at Staples Center, according to the NHL schedule, incidentally, released Thursday.

Lombardi did not attempt to lead anyone on with hopes of making the playoffs. Honesty and directness: not such bad things in a relationship, but not always welcome in the marketing department. You could almost hear the groaning of the folks assigned to sell Kings season tickets at Staples Center.

“As far as the core right now, I’m going to be honest with you, it doesn’t match up,” Lombardi said of the competition within the Western Conference. “But that’s what we’re trying to build, to put that core together. So if I have to make a prediction and look at the cores, it doesn’t match up with those clubs.”

Just when you wondered whether Luc Robitaille, the president on the business side, was going to implode, this particular Dean of consciousness started to make sense in the larger scheme of things.

If lowering expectations could be considered an art form, then Lombardi was working all corners of the canvas. He firmly placed Murray, who has not been a head coach since the 2000-01 season with Florida, in a win-win position by not promising success.

And even if there is a slim improvement – for example, not being out of it by January would be a nice start – then they could proclaim the latest phase of Rebuild L.A. as a step in the right direction.

And so what if the new plan sounded an awful lot like the old plan? Or at least what the old plan was supposed to be two years ago when Lombardi first arrived in Los Angeles.

Lombardi, who has three years remaining on his contract, knew Murray was the right fit when they had an exchange on Monday night and he apparently heard the right answers.

“I called him back and gave him six reasons why he shouldn’t coach the team,” Lombardi said. “Everything from fans’ expectations to where the reserve list is. It is up to him. It’s my opinion on that it’s the toughest job. Right now, it’s easy. But I know what it’s like in January. That’s where the test comes in. Again, he’s been through that.

“He knows what January and February are like.”

At least dire circumstances don’t intimidate Murray. After all, the man did play defense for the California Golden Seals. He had massive renovation projects in Washington and Philadelphia. The Capitals had never made the playoffs when he arrived in the middle of the 1989-90 season.

“The same thing when I went back to Philadelphia to coach, there was five years without being in the playoffs there,” said Murray. “I think those teams were further along, they definitively were, with their makeup.”

He did show a glimpse of wit when asked about the differences between himself and his older brother and Ottawa GM Bryan Murray, who once held that position in Anaheim.

“Big difference in age,” said Terry, who turns 58 on Sunday while Bryan is 65.

Let’s hope that sense of humor is still there in January.

 lisa.dillman@latimes.com