Murray: Kings `embarrassed ourselves’ in Game 3

Given the circumstances — a series deficit, coming off last night’s stunning Game 3 collapse — the Kings seemed to be in relatively good spirits today. There was no mass exodus from the locker room after practice, as players seemed comfortable lingering and answering all questions from reporters about what happened last night and how the Kings might he able to rebound from it. Terry Murray was able to retain his dry humor, as his interview session started with a question about what he did this morning in an attempt to break down video and make sense of the loss. “I said good morning to my wife…,” Murray said, breaking the ice and getting laughs from reporters. That said, Murray turned serious and talked about today’s review with players, and the perceived need for lineup stability. Murray started by discussing how he reviewed the game with the coaching staff and then brought it to players with video review…

MURRAY: “We did both, and that’s just normal. That’s the process we’ve been going through for the last two years, three years here. We have constant reviews of how we played, which I spoke to the coaching staff about this morning, and we edit the game down and we have a team meeting, showing video and then talk about what’s on my mind and what I see.”

Question: And what was foremost on your mind?

MURRAY: “The bottom line, in the playoffs, is that we embarrassed ourselves. We played a terrible game. Now what you have to do is, how do you deal with that kind of performance? We have to bounce back tomorrow and we have to play our best game. It’s as simple as that. That’s what the playoff demand. You can’t linger on what has happened. You do address it, you do talk about it and have a meeting and point out several key areas that you were concerned about, as a coaching staff — which we did — and now we’ve got to move on.”

Question: It looks like you’ve resisted the temptation to blow up the lines. Did you think it was important not to show a sense of panic?

MURRAY: “Very important. For me, as a coach, it’s very important. It was a bad game. It was a poor performance. And it was a poor performance for 20 minutes, really. The first period, obviously there were a lot of good things happening, when you get a lead the way we did. Still we had concerns coming out of the first period, the way we managed the puck. But the second period was chasing the game. You just can’t allow yourself to get into that exchange of rushes, a track meet kind of a game. So we addressed that at the end of the second period. I thought we came back in the third a little bit better, and gave ourselves an opportunity going into the overtime. That’s what it’s all about, as a young hockey club. You’ve got to be able to deal with this kind of adversity. it’s all about attitude right now. To me, this is a touchstone kind of a game for these young players. Some day they’re going to look back at this and they’re going to say, `OK, it happened. We remember what it was, we talked about it, we know we have to be better in this situation.”’