Hollywood’s bench has added another piece.
On Thursday, the Los Angeles Kings announced they have hired Newell Brown to join the team as an assistant coach.
He comes aboard a staff that is now led by Jim Hiller. Hiller was the interim head coach after Todd McLellan was fired in the middle of this past season. He was promoted to be the team’s long-term head coach and signed a three-year deal with the team last week.
Brown will be on the bench alongside associate coach D.J. Smith and assistant coach Derik Johnson. The group is hoping to help get the Kings beyond their current narrative, which is a team that has bowed out of the first round in each of the past three seasons to the Edmonton Oilers.
The 62-year-old spent the last three seasons as an assistant coach of the Anaheim Ducks. It was his third stint with the team. He was behind the bench with the Ducks from 1998-00 and 2005-10, and he was a member of the coaching staff that guided Anaheim to the franchise’s first, and so far only, Stanley Cup in 2007.
Brown has bounced around since breaking into the NHL as a coach in the 1996-97 season. He has also been an assistant with the Chicago Blackhawks (1996-98), the Columbus Blue Jackets (2000-04), Vancouver Canucks (2010-13; 2017-21) and Arizona Coyotes (2013-17).
The Cornwall, Ontario native has coached at various levels throughout his career. He served as the head coach of the Detroit Red Wings’ former American Hockey League affiliate, the Adirondack Red Wings, from 1992 to 1996. Before that he worked at the collegiate level, coaching the Michigan State Spartans and Michigan Tech Huskies.
The former Vancouver Canucks draft pick played just one year of pro hockey in 1984-85, playing with the Fredericton Express of the AHL, and the Muskegon Lumberjacks in the old International Hockey League. Brown won the Memorial Cup with his hometown Cornwall Royals in 1980, before playing four years at Michigan State.
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