Fitting-in process continues for Doughty

That’s now two games in the books for Drew Doughty, who missed almost all of training camp and the preseason while negotiating the terms of a new contract. As promised, Terry Murray was not shy about incorporating Doughty back into the team. In the season opener, Friday against the New York Rangers, Doughty played a team-high 26 minutes, 54 seconds. The next night, against Buffalo, Doughty played 28:45. He’s certainly capable of those minutes on a regular basis, but this is not a regular situation of course, given all the time that Doughty was away. He recorded an assist in the Buffalo game, and Murray was asked for his thoughts on Doughty’s performance in the first two games…

MURRAY: “Energy-wise, conditioning-wise, he’s real good. Now there’s a team thing, where it’s (about) working on our system. He missed a big part of our camp because of the contract. So there’s a great review for him, to go through the fundamental part of it. I think, as we get this week going here, he’s just going to be a better member of our team, just because of now interacting with our players and the lines and a little bit of change with new people, Gagne, Fraser, Moreau, Hunter. You need to figure those guys out in practice a bit, so he can find them at the right time. The bottom line, is that I was very happy with his game against the Rangers and against Buffalo. I thought he took the initiative. He showed some, `I’m going to take this over,’ kind of an attitude. That’s Drew Doughty, and that’s the kind of player that we want to have.’’