By Mitch Bach

Desjardins returning to Medicine Hat following departure from LA Kings

Apr 8, 2019 | 5:03 PM

LOS ANGELES, CA — The Los Angeles Kings are moving in a direction that does not include Willie Desjardins behind the bench, but the former Medicine Hat Tigers head coach isn’t holding any grudges.

Desjardins is thankful to Kings GM Rob Blake for the opportunity to serve as interim head coach for the team and is embracing the next steps in his career.

“It’s a league with lots of pressure,” said Desjardins from a phone call at his residence in sunny California. “I think that there are always tough decisions that have to be made. For me, you look at what the team did, I think there are lots of reasons it went there. I think they just had to look and say we’ve got to tear apart a little bit, we’ve got to rebuild, and I just got caught in that movement.”

The Kings finished with the second-worst record in the regular season, compiling a 31-42-9 record and scoring the second-fewest goals. Desjardins took over from John Stevens in early November, when, at the time, the Kings sat in the basement of the NHL standings.

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Although LA tenured spurts of success through the season, a 10-game losing streak through February kiboshed any hope for a record north of .500.

Desjardins says having the ‘interim’ tag on his position posed an added challenge.

“I think what any organization needs is direction right from the top down. Whenever you have anything in there that doesn’t have a line right down it — this is what we’re doing and how we’re going to do it — then people can find ways around it,” he continued. “I think that’s an issue when that happens. I’m certainly not blaming anybody, it’s just the facts.”

The two-time WHL Champion will spend the next couple weeks preparing for the move back to Medicine Hat, where he’ll resume his in-person instructional role with the South Alberta Hockey Academy.

Desjardins is a co-founder of the Academy, which began operation last fall. He says one of his personal highlights from coaching the Kings came during a trip to Calgary to face the Flames. Numerous student-athletes enrolled in SAHA cheered him on from the Saddledome stands. 

“That was great. That was one of the highlights of the year for sure,” laughed Desjardins. “Once I come back I’ll get involved with the Academy again and see the kids and we’ll talk and go through different things. It’ll be great, it’ll be great to see them.”

SAHA has recently recruited Emerson Etem, a former star for the Medicine Hat Tigers, and Jaeger White, who wrapped up his WHL career with the Kootenay ICE this season. Both are serving as instructors for the Academy.

Desjardins says he’s excited to implement a few more changes once he returns to the Gas City.

“I think there are things we want to improve on and maybe we can get better at,” he added. “It started so quickly last year that we didn’t get everything in place. This year, hopefully, we can get a few more things in place and we can make it even better.”