Has Jim Hiller fixed LA’s structure?

If you subscribe to the adage that defense wins championships, then LA Kings interim head coach Jim Hiller is your guy. For anyone wondering if Hiller would bring a more offensive approach to the team when he took over, it’s been quite the opposite.

Despite a 23-15-10 record, Todd McLellan‘s Kings won only five of the last 20 games in his tenure, leading to his firing. LA was always a good possession team under McLellan, but everything that could go wrong in those fateful 20 games seemingly did.

Enter Jim Hiller.

In 23 games under their former Assistant Coach, the LA Kings have gone 15-7-1 – a .674 points percentage which is the fifth highest in the NHL – and the ship has seemed to have steadied.

Hiller, who has been tasked with running the power play the last two seasons, is known as a more offensive-minded coach. However, in his brief time at the helm, Hiller has really tightened the clamps and has the team playing stingy, structured, defensive hockey.

Let’s dig into some 5-on-5 numbers, courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.

Despite having performed worse in the overall shot share and shot quality, the Kings under Hiller have controlled the actual goals on the scoreboard much more than they did under McLellan. The 58.4% clip is good for third in the NHL.

Generally speaking, I’m not inclined to like the end product outperforming the actual process, but we’ll see if there’s more to this.

Starting with the offensive side of the puck, it’s been considerably worse under Hiller:

So much for the new offensive approach.

Perhaps, though, Hiller wasn’t brought in to change much offensively. The Kings, for better or for worse, are built to win games 2-1 or 3-2. Hiller knows this and given their current roster construction, it doesn’t make much sense to try to play in a way that the team isn’t built for. So, he needed to fix the overall structure and tighten things up. Has that happened?

It’s kind of a mixed bag. The Kings are allowing more shot attempts and more high-danger chances under Hiller while the shots on goal and expected goals against are a virtual wash. That said, the 1.7 goals against per 60 is #1 in the NHL. This is where it’s important to look at that column all the way over to the right. Unironically, LA’s .934 save percentage under Hiller is 2nd in the NHL.

It isn’t always as simple as shooting percentage and save percentage, but when looking at the rolling averages from Evolving Hockey, there’s a fairly obvious correlation to make.