The Kings’ penalty-kill unit has been strong of late, and figures to get another test tonight against Minnesota. Last night, Anaheim — which is a top-five team in power-play efficiency — got only one power play and did not score. Tonight’s opponent, the Wild, rank seventh in power-play efficiency and have totaled six power-play goals in their last six games. Here’s what Terry Murray said today about defending the Wild’s power play…
MURRAY: “They’re a power play that has structure, but they’re really smart. They read off what’s there. They don’t get real specific as far as what they have to do, with the system and style. They’re instinctive. They have smart players. Koivu, who I know is not in the lineup tonight, is one of the critical guys for them, but Cullen is really good at seeing the ice and making plays. They react to what the penalty killing is going to give them. They’re effective against any team because of it.”
As for the Kings’ power play, it actually hasn’t been seen since Saturday in Long Island. Last night, the Kings failed to get a power-play opportunity in a game for the first time this season, and the Kings are 1-for-15 on the power play in their last seven games…
MURRAY: “The power play, I think it’s been pretty good, actually. We might not get some results that we want all the time, but the structure, the zone time, has been pretty good. I think we’re moving well off the puck and getting pucks to the right places at the right time. There’s a lot of penalty-killing teams that are excellent at shot blocking right now, and we just need to find a way to get things through that first layer and get it to the net. What’s going to be real important, if we do get one here tonight, is getting big-time traffic on Backstrom. He’s one of the better goaltenders in the league, and when he sees the puck from anywhere, he’s going to be able to stop it. So net presence is important.”
tough to get power plays when you don’t have the puck in scoring areas. it’s good to get three 5 on 5 goals but we need to see a little more puck possession in the o-zone.
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“The power play, I think it’s been pretty good, actually.”
1 for 15 in last their last 7 games, how is that pretty good. It’s the most boring PP in the league. I know last year against Vancouver in the playoffs we were very good on the PP, but right now, not so much, and if we get into the playoffs this year it must improve.
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tornado12 Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
@Kevco, That quote almost made me spit my burrito all over my screen!
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BrokeKingsFan Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
@tornado12, if i was eating a burrito, garaunteed it would be all over my screen!
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tornado12 Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
@BrokeKingsFan, LMFAO
wavesinair Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
@Kevco, The lack of results on the PP this year has probably cost this team 5-10 points in the standings. I think it’s not, “if we get into the playoffs, it must improve,” it’s “it must improve if we are going to get into the playoffs!”
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tornado12 Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
@wavesinair, Whats your opinion as to why its been so horrid this year compared to last? We have essentially the same personel and same PP coach right? Was Frolov that important?
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VanKingsFan Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
@tornado12, How dare you even suggest our PP was dependent on Fro lol
My opinion comes down to Kopitar. He is the guy that needs to “run” the PP. Doughty and Johnson are the “QB’s” but there is a ton of attention on them and on blocking the lanes from the point. Kopitar needs to do a better job of drawing more attention to himself and threading passes through to the QB’s for open shots. If that doesn’t make itself available then move around; swap places with the QB’s and stay fluid, forcing lanes to open
Im done bashing on TM for the rest of the season until I see just where we end up. Some of the things the guy says though just makes me laugh and say “what?” oooohhhhh TM, if only i could understand what goes on in your head.
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VanKingsFan Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
@BrokeKingsFan, If people were asking you for quotes every single day of your life … you would probably sounds similar.
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Bkrs-Bud Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
@VanKingsFan, Right again.
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TM thinks the Kings PP is pretty good?! Is he trying to be a comedian now? That comment made me laugh out loud. The Kings have been playing really well lately, but their PP is far from pretty good.
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Sebastian Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
@Resedakingsfan, did you miss the game last night…their PK was impecable.
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Resedakingsfan Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
@Sebastian, PK is always awesome, but TM says the PP is pretty good.
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This is classic. TM, please read your own quote about the Wild’s PP and then apply it to our PP. “React to what the PK is giving them”, “Instinctive”, “Read off of whats there”, these are all things that we should be doing on our PP, rather than standing at the half-boards, telegraphing passes and taking shots from bad angles. Some posters get upset with criticsim of the team since we are winning and just completed an incredible road trip. For those posters, I ask you to please take a moment and consider where we would be if we had a PP that could score one goal every other game rather than 1 goal every 7 games? How many games have we lost by 1 goal when we didn’t score on the PP? This is a critical part of the NHL game in its current form and rather than sitting at the #6 seed needing to win almost every night to stay there, we could be sitting at the #3 seed as a division leader and preparing for the playoffs.
Speaking of playoffs, I think our team is already in that mindset (which is good). I noticed last night that alot of them appear to be starting their playoff beards early.
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pr0cess Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
@DesertKing, maybe they all saw that NHL online commercial for the perfect season
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Brent Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
@DesertKing, Bingo! Why can’t we do that… Are our players Hockey IQ’s collectively worse than Minnesota’s? Or is our philosophy stifling their ability to be successfuL?
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twnclick Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
@DesertKing, Glad to see I’m not the only one noticing the play beards. Hope some lines stay together long enough to buildup some kind of familiarity in what the other is going to do.
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crashin' da net Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
@DesertKing, I somehow doubt he gives our boys that level of autonomy. AS the said on SNL – “What was Britanny thinking??!!”"
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We win u guys still pick on TM i just dont get it??Any Coach we get will still have the same proble so guys just drop the hate and just cheer the Kings on to victory
Go Kings Go
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Tookie Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
@KingsFanFTW, I think it’s more a reaction to the quote where he thinks the PP’s been pretty good. I’m not a TM hater, but that’s a pretty delusional statement, and is worrisome.
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fsd1 Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
@Tookie, but you have to admit, even though it hasn’t been scoring it has looked a whole lot better than before?
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Tookie Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
@fsd1, what’s the degree of better? instead of hitting shin pads from the blue line, pucks are making through and wide of the net? sure, then I guess that’s better. I’d like to see the boys move and create a lot more. We just stand around low to high, high to low, and we really don’t move around much. Block a pass or shot from the blue line and you can pretty much defend us, you know where the pucks going.
Pesus Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
@KingsFanFTW, I am a TM hater, well not TM but his boring TM system thats tries to win eveey game 2-0. Everyone thinks bringing in a sniper type will help, but I dont think it will, cuz TM wont utilize him properly, everyone wants to know what happened to kopi this year. Its really hard to score goals in this offence. Guys we let go have no problem scoring 20-30 goals in other systems. We have the players TM just uses them to play defence. Go kings go. And go TM far away from this team, hopefully!
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Seems like TM knows what it takes to be affective on the PP. Maybe not!
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