A Taylor-Made Coach for Kings

On Day One of his regime as the new coach of the Los Angeles Kings, Andy Murray confirmed two things.

He looks like a hockey coach (kind of like ex-Phoenix Coyote coach Jim Schoenfeld, to be precise).

He sounds like a hockey coach, right down to his Canadian-accented pronunciation of offense (OH-fence) and organization (organ-EYE-zation).

He sounds as though he has a plan, the players appear to like him.

Because this is star-crazy Los Angeles, because the Kings already have to play catch-up in the attention game, that isn’t enough.

Andy Murray is a name with no sizzle, no juice. You could put his face on the side of bus and people would think it’s a picture of the driver, not the new coach in town.

Even Murray couldn’t help but feel like he was merely the coaching announcement appetizer this week.

“I think Phil Jackson’s very happy he’s going to be on of the front pages of the newspapers,” Murray joked.

There’s so much going on with the Kings right now. New arena, new practice facility, new millennium, yada, yada, yada. (Murray even managed to include “the fact that the team underachieved last season” among the things that made this an appealing job. Ohhhh-kay.)

The problem is, there’s cause to be excited about everything except the team itself.

At this point the best anyone could realistically expect for this group would be a return to the playoffs and a first-round exit. That would be an improvement over last season’s 32-45-5 record, but it wouldn’t represent a great step forward.

Something has to be done about the image of this team. Blue-collar grinders don’t sell tickets here. This is a team that averaged 12,485 people at the 16,000-seat Great Western Forum last season, and has to fill an additional 2,000 seats to reach capacity at the Staples Center.

Since the Kings appear unwilling or unable to make a bold move to acquire a big-time, big-name goal scorer, the coaching position seemed to be the logical, inexpensive way to make an impact.

New buildings have a way of putting pressure on franchises. There are suites to sell, cost overruns to justify. You knew Larry Robinson wouldn’t be back because the team needed at least the perception that things would be different, better, fresher when the Staples Center opened.

No, people won’t buy tickets to see a coach. But people do buy tickets sometimes as an act of faith, and an exciting name behind the bench would give fans a reason to believe that maybe, just maybe, things are changing for the better.

King General Manager Dave Taylor said Murray was hired after “a very detailed search.”

That’s the problem. This is one case where attention to detail wasn’t in order.

The interview process should have started with: Have you done anything noteworthy in the NHL? Is your name on the Stanley Cup? If either question came back no, the candidates should have been shown the door. Ted Nolan, the NHL’s coach of the year for 1996-97, got a bad rep for undermining John Muckler, his general manager in Buffalo. But Mike Keenan kept getting more opportunities despite turning every opportunity he had into a power struggle. Someone has to take a chance on Nolan. It just won’t be the Kings.

It’s hard to believe that the same franchise that was a part of perhaps the most significant transaction in NHL history--the Wayne Gretzky trade in 1988--has become so timid and docile.

In New York last week, what little mention there was of hockey consisted of how the Kings were supposedly hot and heavy after New York Islander left wing Ziggy Palffy. Now all that talk was gone poof, with the New York Rangers poised to swoop in and take Palff Daddy.

No star players, no star coach. It would be one thing if Murray had a proven track record as an NHL head coach. He doesn’t. All he has are seven seasons as an assistant coach for three teams. Ominously, two of those teams (the Winnipeg Jets and Minnesota North Stars) relocated to other cities because they couldn’t make ends meet.

Murray’s head coaching efforts for Team Canada came in second-level tournaments. His highest level of participation included stints as an assistant on the Canadian national teams in the 1996 World Cup of Hockey and the 1998 Olympics. I’m not sure I’d put those two silver medal finishers--two of the most disappointing results in Canadian hockey history--on the resume.

In time, he may prove to be a good coach. Much of what Murray had to say sounded good (“My big thing is respecting the game for what it is.” “I think the primary factor is that I try to be myself.”)

None of it sounded exciting. Sure, it’s better to win ugly than to lose pretty. The Kings had it worse last season. They were dull losers.

“Ultimately in our sport--in any sport--we’re going to be judged on wins and losses,” Taylor said.

As far as Taylor’s duties are concerned, that’s true. The franchise as a whole also needs to worry about dollars and cents. And in the entertainment capital of the world, bad image equals bad product.

The Kings need more than just a new coach. They need a good makeup artist.