Quiet, serious Kings prepare for Game 5

On Wednesday morning, the morning after Game 3, the mood around the Kings’ practice and locker room was light and cheerful despite the loss. The same could not be said today, as the players and coaches went through what could be described as a quiet, serious practice. After drills ended, Terry Murray pulled the players together for a chat that lasted a couple minutes, and then the players headed off to the locker room quietly, with the only noise being interaction with a handful of reporters. There’s no mystery about the mood. The Kings face elimination Saturday night in San Jose, and Murray was asked about his message to the team today…

MURRAY: “The series is 3-1. I look at it as a self-inflicted issue right now. Coming out of the game last night, they scored six goals. I gave them a look on their power-play goal, but outside of that, those goals against are plays that basically we hand to them through breakdowns and reads that have been made all year long. That’s a part of the game that we have taken a lot of pride in over the last three years, is to be a good, solid defensive hockey club, to do things the right way all of the time, as a team. So when I say I need players to play good, I need them to play the right way. We don’t need to have any one player, two players, feel that they need to put the whole thing on their shoulders and play extra-special, because that’s when problems start to come back at you and comes right back down our throat. I just want us to play good.”