Last in the NHL standings and in goals per game, the Kings on Sunday fired coach John Stevens and assistant coach Don Nachbaur.
The club named Willie Desjardins as interim coach with Marco Sturm taking over as an assistant.
"This is a critical time in our season and our results to date have fallen well below our expectations," general manager Rob Blake said in a statement. "With that in mind, this was a difficult decision but one we feel was necessary."
A 4-1 win over Columbus on Saturday didn't save Stevens' job. The Kings were a lackluster 4-8-1 this season, last in the West and last in the NHL in winning percentage. Stevens' record as their head coach was 49-37-9.
Stevens was welcomed by players as a soft-spoken but authoritative change from the hard-driving ways of Darryl Sutter. However, he couldn't manage to squeeze enough goals out of the team for the Kings to rise to the top of their division. This season, he emphasized playing at a faster pace but their scoring woes continued, despite the offseason signing of free agent winger Ilya Kovalchuk.
The Kings rank last in the NHL with an average of 2.15 goals per game and their goal differential of minus-17 also ranked 31st. Blake and club president Luc Robitaille built the team with the belief that the Kings' core players _ who won Stanley Cup championships in 2012 and 2014 _ had another title in them, but the team's performance has been disappointing to date.
The Kings next play on Tuesday, when they play host to the Ducks at Staples Center.
