{"id":530206,"date":"2026-03-30T00:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/530206\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T00:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:17:13","slug":"everything-dj-smith-said-after-the-la-kings-blowout-loss-to-utah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/530206\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything DJ Smith said after the LA Kings’ blowout loss to Utah"},"content":{"rendered":"

The start of a season-long seven-game homestand on home ice at Crypto.com Arena for new interim head coach DJ Smith and the Los Angeles Kings<\/a> (29-26-18) got off to a brutal start this weekend on Saturday night (March 28) vs. the Utah Mammoth (38-30-6). Smith and the Kings fell behind early on the scoreboard in the opening frame in the first period and weren’t able to recover late in the game vs. Utah on home ice. <\/p>\n

Los Angeles Kings and DJ Smith suffer a bad loss on home ice vs. Utah this weekend by a score of 6-2<\/p>\n

By the second intermission after the middle frame in the second period yesterday vs. the Mammoth on home ice at Crypto Arena, the Kings were behind at one point by four goals on the scoreboard after a brutal game in the game’s first 40 minutes this weekend. <\/p>\n

The Kings were outplayed and looked completely flat on both sides of the ice yesterday in a big game vs. Utah on home ice on Saturday night. <\/p>\n

Smith gave his thoughts and reaction<\/a> to the media yesterday after the flatlining 6-2 loss on the scoreboard on home ice vs. the Mammoth in the West this weekend. <\/p>\n

This was not the way that Smith and the Kings needed to come out in a game with a huge opportunity to pick up points in the West in the Pacific Division this regular season this weekend. <\/p>\n

Here’s a look at everything Smith said to the media postgame following the Kings’ embarrassing and lifeless 6-2 loss on home ice at Crypto.com Arena vs. the Mammoth on March 28. <\/p>\n

DJ Smith<\/p>\n

On how the Kings played yesterday vs. Utah on home ice<\/p>\n

“Flat. We just played slow. We just didn\u2019t forecheck, didn\u2019t play to the identity that we\u2019ve played with and that\u2019s fast, physical, above you. That\u2019s a recipe for disaster tonight.”<\/p>\n

On the Kings coming out flat yesterday vs. Utah in the opening frame in the first period<\/p>\n

“We had no legs, right from the get-go. We made it hard on ourselves by playing East\/West in the neutral zone, and didn\u2019t play fast at all. And when you play that way, you allow the other team to get above you, and that\u2019s what we do to teams. They were ready right from the get-go. We didn\u2019t start on time tonight, and before you know it, you\u2019re just chipping it and changing, chipping and changing. We just simply weren\u2019t good enough.”<\/p>\n

On the low energy level and how the Kings came into last night mentally vs. Utah<\/p>\n

“You always worry about that, coming back from a trip, that the first one is maybe not as sharp. Our passing wasn\u2019t good. We were not sharp in any facet of the game, maybe other than 10 minutes in the third period, where we played a little bit like ourselves. <\/p>\n

For whatever reason, it\u2019s not good enough. Against a team that is fighting for the playoffs, just like us, it\u2019s just not good enough. So, we\u2019ve got three days of practice to be fresh and to get fresh, and then we\u2019ve got to play significantly better here at home than we did tonight.”<\/p>\n

On making the goalie change in the middle frame in the second period last night on the ice<\/p>\n

“You\u2019re solely doing it. We gave up breakaways and clean looks and 2-on-1\u2019s. For Darcy’s sake, none of it\u2019s on him; that\u2019s on us, and that\u2019s solely just to rest him and have him ready for the next one. That has nothing to do with him. I think it\u2019d be hard to find, really, when you look at it, who was good? Tonight, it\u2019s not like you had a couple guys that didn\u2019t go; as a whole, we just were not very good tonight. The fortunate part is, there is nine games left. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to look at the tape, and we\u2019re going to ask ourselves why, in the morning, why we weren\u2019t ready, what didn\u2019t we do, whatever the excuse is, it really doesn\u2019t matter. All I know is, we\u2019ve got two huge games coming up after three days, and we\u2019ve got to be way better than we were tonight.”<\/p>\n

On the Kings struggles to pick up wins on home ice this past few months at Crypto.com Arena<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t know what it is. Last year, we couldn\u2019t lose here and right now, we don\u2019t lose very much on the road. That\u2019s in your head. I can tell you this, people say it\u2019s luck, there\u2019s bounces, you make your own luck in this world. You do it right long enough, things happen. We didn\u2019t come ready to play good enough today. Whether it\u2019s our building or the road or wherever we played this game, that isn\u2019t good enough. We\u2019ve got three days to figure it out and then we\u2019ve got nine games. <\/p>\n

One thing about this team is there\u2019s guys that care in there. It\u2019d be different if there was one or two guys that just didn\u2019t have it. Everyone didn\u2019t have it. Maybe a few guys up front might have had it. When that many guys don\u2019t have it, you\u2019re not blaming it on anyone. You\u2019re going to take it as a group, me included, and we\u2019re going to turn the page and find a way to be better for the next one. It\u2019s got to be a playoff mentality. If you lost Game 1 in triple overtime, you can\u2019t dwell on it, you\u2019ve got to move on, you\u2019ve got to get better, and you have to learn from why we lost the way we lost tonight.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The start of a season-long seven-game homestand on home ice at Crypto.com Arena for new interim head coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5126],"tags":[5,186,1760,240,5303,793,145,5304,5302,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-530206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-kings","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kings","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-kings","12":"tag-lakings","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-kings","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangeleskings","17":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116315255296162190","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}