LOS ANGELES (AP) – The struggling Los Angeles Kings have sacked head coach John Stevens on Sunday, just 13 games away from his second season as manager.

Willie Desjardins will be acting head coach of the Kings for the remainder of the regular season, said General Manager Rob Blake.

Los Angeles also sacked assistant coach Don Nachbaur and hired former Kings striker Marco Sturm to replace him on Desjardins staff.

Los Angeles is the last overall in the NHL after a 4-8-1 start and the last in the league with 2.15 goals per game. The Kings were outclassed 45-28, but they had won two of their last three games after a six-game losing streak.

"I'm looking to get the competition and the passion," Blake said after announcing his second coaching change in 19 months. "We need emotional involvement from our players, it's hard to win when you're not, and we're expecting Willie to bring that passion and enthusiasm to this team."

The Kings beat Columbus 4-1 Saturday in Stevens' final game. Desjardins, the former Vancouver head coach, will lead the training on Monday and make his debut behind the bench when Kings rival Anaheim play Tuesday night.

The Kings still have many top NHL players, including Hart Trophy finalist Anze Kopitar, Norris Trophy defender Drew Doughty and forward Jeff Carter alongside newcomer Ilya Kovalchuk . But with goalkeeper Jonathan Quick missing, with the exception of four games because of injuries, Los Angeles has stumbled over the last three and a half weeks thanks to his list of well-paid veterans, inconsistent depth players and of unequal defense.

"You're looking at the training camp and the regular season, but expectations have not been met," Blake said. "We have very good players, we have players who can play games, we expect them to play, and we expect them to play with that level of competition, and that's it's not the case. "

Stevens took office in 2017 after seven years as assistant in Los Angeles under Terry Murray and Darryl Sutter. The former head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers was an assistant to the winning teams of the Stanley Cup of Kings in 2012 and 2014.

Stevens' promotion was aimed at creating a new mentality for the Kings while maintaining some continuity with Sutter, whose refined hockey style won the only two Stanley Cup titles in franchise history. Intelligent maneuvers by coach Sutter and former GM Dean Lombardi have won two championships, but have also left the Kings with relatively slow training and veterans who struggled to compete in the NHL after 2014.

The Kings went 45-29-8 in Stevens' debut last season, finishing fourth in the Pacific Division and swept by Vegas in the first round of the playoffs. Stevens scored a total of 51-39-9 in Los Angeles, including four games as the Kings' interim head coach during the 2011-12 season between Murray and Sutter's terms.

Everything went wrong for Stevens, although Blake said he had read the concerns of the training camp. After adding Kovalchuk as a free agent last summer, Los Angeles had a terrible start to the season this fall while playing largely without Quick and striker Dustin Brown, injured for long periods.

Quick is currently missing several weeks after undergoing a knee surgery, leaving Jack Campbell inexperienced as Los Angeles high-level goalkeeper. The inability of the Los Angeles farm system to produce above-average players in recent years has dramatically reduced the depth and competitiveness of the big league club, but the Kings' high-end talent is not producing its share either, according to Blake.

"We have some really good players," Blake said. "We need them to play at a higher level – it's a problem this season that we have not all given the right direction – that's partly the reason for this change." . "

Blake said he had no long-standing relationship with Desjardins, the Canucks head coach in 2014-17. After Vancouver missed the playoffs in their last two seasons, Desjardins coached the Canadian men's national team to bronze at the Pyeongchang Olympics last February.

The Kings also have a lot of sympathy for Sturm, whose 14-year career in the NHL has been 17 times with the Kings. He is the head coach of the German national team since 2015 and has led his country to a silver medal in Pyeongchang.

Sturm, 40, will spend another week running Germany in the Deutschland Cup before heading to Los Angeles. Blake said the Kings chose Sturm for his "new style of generational coaching" and his "player relations" skills.

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