Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty had an opportunity to sit down with new Kings assistant coach John Stevens at Development Camp this summer. Here’s his interview.
EL SEGUNDO, CA — While fans of the Los Angeles Kings are up in arms over their team’s inability to improve themselves to this point in the 2010 off-season, venting their frustrations in no uncertain terms on virtually every Kings-related forum on the World Wide Web, life does indeed go on.
With the departure of assistant coach Mark Hardy, who resigned on June 11 (see LA Kings Assistant Coach Mark Hardy Resigns), the Kings strengthened their reputation as “Flyers West” when they hired John Stevens as an assistant coach on June 24, 2010 (see Los Angeles Kings Name John Stevens As Assistant Coach).
Stevens, 44, earned a 120-109-34 record as head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, a position he accepted on October 22, 2006, after the Flyers got off to a 1-6-1 start that season.
The native of Campbellton, New Brunswick began that season as an assistant coach and wound up leading the Flyers to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2007-08, before being fired on December 5, 2009, after the team was shutout in two consecutive games.
Coming from the Flyers, Stevens was familiar to Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi and Vice President/Assistant General Manager Ron Hextall, who both worked for the Flyers before joining the Kings.
Stevens should be able to mesh well with Kings head coach Terry Murray, who was a Flyers assistant coach under Stevens.
“Terry and I worked together for a couple of years,” said Stevens. “When you work with another coach for that length of time, you’re pretty comfortable with the way things are run.”
“It’s a great organization,” added Stevens. “Development Camp has been pretty neat for me to be involved with, to see how things are run. It’s only been a few days, but it’s been great.”
Although Stevens has only had a couple of months to get his feet wet with the Kings, so far, so good.
Read the rest on Frozen Royalty.




