Terry Murray’s postgame thoughts…
(on the game…)
MURRAY: “We did anticipate a hard game. You know the Flyers are going to come to play. They were playing very well coming into this game. They always give you a big effort. They play hard, they play with grit, and we saw that. We did expect that.”
(on his team’s effort…)
MURRAY: “For part of the game, we got a pretty good effort. When you lose, you’re always going to analyze the play, and break it down and see what happened. On those goals, I would like to have them all back. Mis-reads, in my view. We played well enough to win, but the Flyers played a real good road game. They played smart. They’re a good team. They’ve got some premier players, and they capitalized on turnovers, mistakes, decisions that we made, and they win because of it.”
(on it being tough to defend bounces off the boards…)
MURRAY: “You don’t have to defend the bounces. You have to defend the man, one-on-one. That’s the easy part. He’s not jumping all over the place. That’s just body positioning.”
(on the frantic play in the final five minutes…)
MURRAY: “I don’t want to get into that, because that should never have been the situation. That’s because of our own play, our own decisions with the puck, our own reads, that they had the lead at that time of the game. I know it’s hockey, I know stuff happens, but for me, tonight in this game, that game should have been more under control for us. We should have been in better position in the last five minutes of the game.”
(on the failed 5-on-3 power play…)
MURRAY: “That’s a critical part of the game. That’s where you can put the game away. It’s a 5-on-3 for the full two minutes. We didn’t get our first shot on net for the first minute and nine seconds. We looked very disorganized at times, and that was an opportunity to bury the game.”
(on the high shot total, but few quality chances…)
MURRAY: “We passed up quite a few good shooting opportunities here tonight, on the power play and 5-on-5. To me, tonight, the shot clock, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter if we had 70 shots here tonight. I’m looking at situations where it cost us goals, where we made the decisions and they weren’t the right ones. They were decisions we were doing a great job of making, on our structure and our D-zone play. That’s where we hang our hat, on the checking part of the game, and we’ve been doing it very well. You’ve got to do it against the good teams. If we would have had it, we would have won tonight.”
(on Frolov generating one shot, in the final minute…)
MURRAY: “The line itself — I don’t want to talk about Fro, necessarily — but the line itself needs to be better. I think that’s an opportunity for that line to step up against the good competition. We have some big games in front of us, and I think they’ll get it together. I trust that they will. They care about each other, they want to work hard for each other, and it will start to get going.”
seems like the coach is blaming the goalie with the statement about having ALL the goals back…isnt that a way of blaming the goalie without saying it straight up???
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No, because immediately after that statement he said “Mis-reads, in my view.” The way I take this is that mis-reads on defense lead to altogether too many great chances, and three went in.
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If this can be passed on to TM: That entire first line should be put through drills working on having everyone shooting. Fro had 1 shot while Kopi had 6 and JW had 8. Fro should work on putting the puck on net. And one of the 3 should almost always be in front of the net. I think, not 100 percent sure, but while watching I saw all members near the corner one below the line, one in the face off circle, and the last with the puck up against the boards in control of the puck. Some one should have headed for the net.
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…and the one shot Fro took (if the stat is correct) was a wraparound…Fro doesn’t shoot unless he thinks it’s a sure thing, it seems.
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Maybe the coaches should take some responsibility for failure. Their system and how they design the plays…Why is that on the attack Kings forwards always seem to end up behind the net…and on the PP there’s never a King to the side of the net. And Sean O. please retire and do what you’re good at….cooking.
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It’s 08-09′ all over again. Get to the front of the net. Someone there and we score 5-3 and knock that last trickle shot in. You have to bury a team when leading by 1 and have a full 2 min 5-3 PERIOD end of story. I am going to sound nervous here but it is time to get a scorer out there somewhere. Dont mortgage the farm but there has to be a quality player we can get to come over during these 15 games Smyth is on the shelf. Bring up Lokitinov & Moller. Why does every shot we take come from top. The cross ice pass worked the other night and we never incorporate it into our plan.
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I agree with you to a point…their goaltender was shaky. He was good for at least two more goals off rebounds. The problem is there was no one to put in those rebounds because they were somewhere besides the slot.
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Murray nailed it. Well said coach.
Here is the post game on http://www.lakingsnews.com
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From what I understand about hockey after having watched it for 25 years, it is possible to score on a 5 on 3 advantage, given one specific… you have to actually Shot the puck, otherwise there is every good chance you won’t score. The Kings do bring the grit to their game now, but I find their lack of movement and creativity in these situations rather troubling.
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Well put. Be seeing you!
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i don’t understand why everyone is so down with fro…
c’mon guys…be objective…
fro was good…i thought he played very well…the criticism in this case is unwarranted…fro had two shots in the final minute…the wrap around and the rebound attempt…geez…he played a very solid game and did things that he wasn’t accustomed to do…
jw was awesome…he looked like the tenacious first-line wing we’ve been needing for quite some time…haters are out of their mind and obviously cannot see pat their despise of losing the mediocre (at best) pos…
i don’t get the fro hate…it’s making me a little bit suspect with some you guys…
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special teams will decide this season for us. If our PP and PK pick up….were in the playoffs….if not…were golfing at the end of the season..
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You do realize, don’t you variable, that his one shot (check the stats) came in the time you’re talking about. The cardinal rule is, if you’re not scoring, at least put it on net. His line mates did that. He did not. I’ve had his back this far, but tonight he deserved criticism.
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Hmm…Is there a stat that shows how much time that line spent in the offensive zone? there were quite a few shifts where the fro-kopi-williams line had the puck for seemingly the whole shift. the fact that they had 15 shots combined speaks volumes about how much control they had. they just didnt convert. i hope murray lets them stick together.
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I don’t see a reason for hating Fro off the game last night, but he has to get better than what he showed. He’s a top 6 forward who didn’t look dangerous at all with the puck. It was his 1st game playing with those guys this year and it looked like he was trying to get them the puck as much as possible. I think we’ll see the needed improvement going forward.
I was more upset with the play of Purcell. I said it on another post. He’s supposed to be a friggin goal scorer. He doesn’t even generate scoring opportunites.
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Fro should not have been on the firstline. We know what he can do. TM should have given Parse or even (hate to say it) Purcell a shot on the line.
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Tough loss last night… It seems most of the talk is about Fro but remember “there is no “Fro” in team”… hehehe… Over all we were sloppy at times and had some trouble getting into the “O” zone with solid possesion at some key points in the game(in my opinion). And yes Fro needs to shoot the puck more in the Offensive zone when there is nothing else opening up, and they dont all need to be wrap arounds. To be fair this was his first game with Kopi and Willy so I am willing to give it a two or three games (one down) before I pass judgement on his play with the #1 line.
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Who the F is coaching our special teams? Both sides stink! I think we were hoping that one of our passes on the 5-3 deflected into the net. Shoot the Puck!
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I never like TM’s comments.
I hope Quick tunes these guys out. He isn’t playing his game anymore. They’ve made him jumpy and unconfident with all the criticism. If you don’t think he’s good enough, call up Bernie and see what happens.
Poor coaching, all around.
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Poor coaching–The team is near the league leaders in point production. I hope the poor coaching continues at this pace for the whole season.
The five on three power play was very disappointing and it probably changed the momentum in the game. However there were other plays that also contributed to the loss.
Frolov had a good game last night and still he gets flamed by the same guys who will never be satisfied with him, no matter what he does. If he does get traded what will you have to complain about?
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I agree with the Fro bashing. The guy has been asked to be a checking line winger for the most part and then gets pushed to the top line with expectations of immediate results.
Yeah he has the talent and because many times we question his tenacity, it is easy to rationalize the blame on him. But give him a freaking chance before we give him the hook.
This game was lost because there were 2 breakdowns that led to easy goals.
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meant to say that I don’t agree with the Fro bashing
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