Surprising special-teams success so far

Who would have guessed that, through two games, the Kings would be plus-3 on the power play against San Jose? The Kings are 3-for-9 on the power play while the Sharks are 0-for-7. Coming into the series, the special-teams matchup figured to be an interesting one, because it matched strength vs. strength and weakness vs. weakness. In the regular season, in terms of efficiency, the Sharks’ power play ranked No. 2 and the Kings’ penalty kill ranked No. 4. On the other side, the Kings’ power play ranked No. 21 and the Sharks’ penalty kill ranked No. 24. It stood to reason that whichever team could break that statistical stalemate, and garner a special-teams advantage, might have a leg up in the series. So far, it’s been the Kings, but there’s still a long way to go in the series, as Terry Murray said today…

MURRAY: “Their power play has been great against us all year long. Our penalty killing is very good. We finished at the top of the league in that special-team area, and I think that is the matchup that is real important for us to continue to focus on. At the end of the day, we got a couple of power-play looks that paid off us. It’s funny how things work sometimes. When you pay attention to one thing, the other part starts to kick in for you.”