Special teams doomed Kings against Stars

It would be fair to say that a lack of sustained offense was the biggest culprit in the Kings’ loss last night, but they certainly didn’t help themselves by taking five penalties in the game’s first 35 minutes. The Stars’ power play has been hot of late, and while the Kings killed the first three penalties, they got burned on the latter two, and that’s where the Stars got their goals. Particularly glaring for Terry Murray was the fact that two of the penalties were for sending the puck over the glass, delay-of-game penalties.

MURRAY: “That’s the hard part, for me. That was such a focal point in our meeting, in the pregame talk. We just didn’t want to bring the referees into the game. You’re on the road, it’s an important game, and we didn’t want to bring the referees into it. Then we got two over-the-glass (penalties), a hooking penalty, and that’s just a play that you can’t have. Greener’s (roughing penalty) was a competitive play. He was, I thought, doing the right thing, and the puck just had not arrived at the right time. But competitively it was a good play. But that other stuff, even Cliffy’s — he throws an elbow and it doesn’t connect — that’s the composure and the discipline that you have to bring to the game. Play between the whistles really hard. We have to get away from that careless stuff. Three penalties for over glass, in the last two games, just is not right.”

The Kings didn’t help themselves much on the other side of the special teams, either, as they went 0-for-2 on the power play. They had two shots on goal on the first power play, and zero on their third-period power play.

MURRAY: “We get a power play in the third period, we dump the puck in and we don’t recover pucks. That’s something with the power play, even though we haven’t scored recently, we have recovered pucks much better than we did last night. We ended up turning it over and chasing the puck. That’s what needs to happen on a more consistent basis, more of those puck recoveries, holding onto it, making plays.”

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