CRAWFORD IS NEW KING FORMER AVALANCHE, CANUCKS COACH TO LEAD L.A.

Byline: RICH HAMMOND Staff Writer

The Kings will announce the hiring of Marc Crawford as their new head coach on Monday.

Crawford, 45, has made the playoffs in seven of his nine full seasons as a NHL coach, including 1995-96, when he won the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche, but Crawford was fired by Vancouver on April 25 after the Canucks finished with a 42-32-8 record and missed the playoffs.

The Kings reached agreement with Crawford on Friday and will introduce him at a news conference Monday morning. Crawford made $1 million last season and was considered a top candidate in the market. Crawford has a career NHL coaching re cord of 411 wins, 277 losses, 103 ties and 32 overtime losses.

Crawford comes with an impressive resume, as he becomes the first coach to join the Kings after having won a Stanley Cup championship elsewhere.

A native of Belleville, Ontario, Crawford spent parts of six seasons as a winger in the NHL in the 1980s and landed a job as a head coach in the AHL just three years after his retirement from pro hockey.

In 1994, at age 33, Crawford was named head coach of the Quebec Nordiques and led them to a 30-13-5 record and the playoffs in the lockout-shortened season. For that, Crawford received the Jack Adams Award, given to the league's best coach.

In 1995-96, after the franchise moved to Colorado, Crawford coached a team led by Peter Forsberg, Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy to the Stanley Cup title. The Avalanche reached the Western Conference Finals the next year but Crawford resigned after the following season amid reports he would be fired.

Crawford took over in Vancouver 45 games into the next season. In his six full seasons in Vancouver, Crawford coached four teams to the playoffs but had only one series victory, in 2003.

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