Working it out

Terry Murray put the Kings through a fairly strenuous two-hour practice this morning, after giving them the day off Friday. The Kings are 1-1-1 in the preseason, having defeated Colorado 4-2 and lost to Phoenix 3-1 and 2-1 (in overtime) in split-squad games. Today, with his training-camp roster trimmed to 32 healthy players, all of whom were on the same sheet of ice this morning, Murray was asked what aspects of the game he felt needed to be addressed after the three preseason games.

MURRAY: “Neutral-zone play was the big issue for me, on both sides of the puck. Checking-wise, I watched the game at Phoenix on my computer, and there were a couple times, whenever the middle of the ice got exposed, that they walked in and had a couple of breakaways. That’s just awareness, and part of the practice here today was to focus on the neutral-zone forecheck. Then, on the other side of it, we’re trying to get the puck up the ice faster. That `north’ attitude, to get on the puck, is important, and the only way you can instill that in the players this early in the training camp is to do a lot of reps on it. So that was the main focus. Then again, at the end, you saw the skate for conditioning. I liked today. It was good, hard work.”