L.A. Kings fire head coach Jim Hiller, name D.J. Smith as the interim replacement

The Los Angeles Kings haven't been the same team this season following their fourth straight first-round playoff exit, and general manager Ken Holland decided a coaching shakeup was the final chance to snap this team out of its funk.

The Kings fired head coach Jim Hiller on Sunday after losing five of their past six games and falling out of playoff position. D.J. Smith was named the interim replacement for the remainder of the season in the first coaching change by Holland, who kept Hiller behind the bench when he took over the front office last May.

"We've underperformed," Holland said at the Kings' training complex in El Segundo, Calif. "I'm hoping that the move will do a couple of things. One, kind of jolt the team [to] respond, and two, [provide] a little bit of a different message. I know when D.J. met the players today, he told them it's going to be a clean slate. We're hoping the team will respond."

Player development coach Matt Greene, who won two Stanley Cup rings as a Kings defenceman, is also joining Smith's staff as an assistant.

Hiller was in just his second full season in charge of the Kings, who looked lifeless Thursday in an 8-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers — the team that also sent Los Angeles home early from the past four Stanley Cup playoffs. Fans broke into repeated chants of "Fire Hiller!" while the Oilers poured it on in the second and third periods of Los Angeles' largest defeat of the season.

One night earlier, Los Angeles allowed five goals in the third period of an embarrassing 6-4 loss to short-handed Vegas in both teams' first game back from the Olympic break. A 2-0 win against Calgary on Saturday was not enough to save Hiller's job.

A 2-0 win over Calgary on Saturday was not enough to change