start and cost McLellan his job.

Blake also acknowledged that, as the Kings (23-15-10, 56 points) cling to dear life in a season when they were supposed to thrive, his own employment might well be on the line.

“It’s my responsibility. I hired Todd. It was my responsibility to let him go the other day,” Blake said. “And I fully understand the repercussions if this team does not win or have success.”

McLellan had made linear progress across his four full seasons as head coach, catapulting the Kings out of the sort of rebuild that other one-time Western Conference powerhouses like the Ducks, San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks were still very much enduring. He followed 2021-22’s campaign of 99 points with a 104-point effort last year, which was one point shy of the best single-season total in franchise history, achieved in 1975.

Yet this offseason, Blake and his staff sliced and diced the roster: they pumped out seven players, two draft picks and retained significant salary. It was all an effort to re-sign the steady and dependable Vladislav Gavrikov for just two years and lock down the red-flag-laden Dubois for eight seasons, seven of which will carry some form of a no-trade clause, at what’s proven an extortionate $8.5 million annual average value.

“Yes, this is a team that we built to make the playoffs,” Blake said when asked if he would make the audacious series of moves required to acquire Dubois over the summer given the benefit of hindsight.

Dubois has produced just 20 points in 48 games with a team-worst minus-16 rating with no discernible defensive or special teams impact.

“Individually, there’s numerous players here that have not been up to their potential, him included, but the team overall needs to be better, too,” Blake continued.

Now attempting to motivate the Kings’ flagging group, which tied for the fewest wins in the NHL in January, will be Jim Hiller, who had run their power play for a season and a half as an assistant to McLellan.

Blake was asked why the Kings opted for an internal promotion rather than an external hire, and what made Hiller, who had no pro head coaching experience, the most viable candidate to lead a team that holds the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference but is only four points from falling out of a playoff spot. Assistant Trent Yawney had 103 games of NHL head coaching experience with Chicago, while the Kings’ minor-league head coach, Marco Sturm, was also an NHL assistant and the steward of the German national team that captured surprise silver medals at the 2018 Olympics.

Blake did not respond to the first question, though he later said in a separate response that finances were not a factor, and opted to focus on Hiller’s head coaching experience at the junior level as well as his work as an NHL assistant. He was similarly nondescript when asked repeatedly what would be different about Hiller’s tenure and approach as opposed to McLellan’s, and it remains to be seen whether he will be allowed to tinker with the team’s 1-3-1 scheme, which relies on forechecking and trapping in the neutral zone to generate rushes on offense.

“Well, there’s a different person. It’s a different person in charge. Meetings are different, meeting times are different, approaches to the game. Every single thing would be different when a new person steps in,” Blake said. “I don’t know if I’m going to get into the systems and structure. Part of the timing here, it does give Jim some days here with our group before our next game.”

Hiller, whose first practice as head coach will be Thursday when the Kings return from the All-Star break and their bye week, has been analytically oriented and offensive-minded, both with the Kings and in his previous stops. Those proclivities could provide some insight into what Blake was looking for as the Kings’ penalty kill has persisted in its excellence even as seemingly every other area of their game soured, producing a series of blown leads and tight losses.

How much has a stretch of 14 losses in 17 games, many of them nail-biters, heading into the All-Star break impacted morale?

“A lot. Very much. Confidence,” said Blake, who added that he was “fine” with the present locker-room chemistry. “It’s the same players we’ve had here, 24 games in, we were doing things really well, playing hard. The word that’s been used lately is a disconnect, our team has played disconnected, I think.”

“Offensively, yes, we have to be better, defensively, we have to be better,” he added. “Through 24 games, we scored the most goals in the league, the next 24 were 32nd (of 32 teams).”