Standing pat with power-play personnel

Once again, tonight, the Kings will look to break out of their power-play funk. They’re 0-for-22 with the man advantage in their last seven games and have fallen to 19th in the NHL in power-play efficiency, after climbing to a high of 12th just more than two weeks ago. Jack Johnson leads the Kings in power-play points this season, with 21, followed by Anze Kopitar (13) and Ryan Smyth (10), but while Kopitar and Smyth are on the Kings’ “first” power-play unit, Johnson is not. The first unit uses Drew Doughty and Jarret Stoll as point men, while the second unit uses Johnson and Alec Martinez. It’s fair to ask Terry Murray if he has considered putting Doughty and Johnson together on the first unit, but Murray seems inclined to try for balance. The first unit includes Kopitar, Smyth, Doughty, Stoll and Andrei Loktionov, while the second unit includes Johnson, Martinez, Dustin Brown, Michal Handzus and Justin Williams. Murray said he wouldn’t look to make any more personnel changes now, having recently added Loktionov to the unit.

Referring specifically to a Doughty-Johnson power-play tandem, a look the Kings had at times earlier this season, and a look that worked particularly well in the playoffs against Vancouver last season, Murray said, “It’s tempting, but I think we’re going to hang in there with the same group right now. You reinforce the 5-on-5 play that we showed the other night, with the goals that were going in from the back end. It’s the same kind of a look that you want to have on the power play.

“That’s where we’re running into a little bit of a situation, I believe, where it comes up top and we’re still waiting for those passes to be coming back down low, with guys waiting on the goal line on that strong side, when actually that player should be coming to the front of the net, coming to the high slot. Now you’re not an option. So now, up top, the puck has to be handled with the umbrella look, at take it to the net and look for rebounds. That’s just a play, off the puck, that we need to get better at, to get more consistent at, and I think whenever you eliminate the options on the puck movement, it forces things to come to the net.”