Watch out for blue-line scoring

Looking for scoring from the Florida Panthers? Look at the blue line. The six defensemen who are expected to play for the Panthers tonight have totaled 12 goals and 35 assists. That doesn’t include Dmitry Kulikov, who isn’t expected to play tonight and has one goal and 14 assists. The pairing of Jason Garrison (eight goals, four assists) and Brian Campbell (two goals, 18 assists) has been the big producer for the Panthers, and has the attention of Terry Murray. By contrast, the Kings have 11 goals and 22 assists from their regular blue-liners.

MURRAY: “Campbell has always been a player that has put up pretty good numbers, wherever he’s been. He’s very mobile. He’s got good vision on the ice. He makes a lot of players, Weaver is a smaller guy who makes a lot of plays back there. And they’ve got a big guy who I don’t even know, Gudbranson, so they’re getting some real good production on the back end, and we’ve got to have awareness to them jumping in from the blue line, which they do a lot. Our wingers have to be very sharp, and making sure we’re doing a good job checking.’’

Question: I’m guessing you’d like to see the same kind of production come from your blue line…

MURRAY: “It will. The production from our blue line is not where we know it can be, and it will get to that point, where they will get some good numbers put up. It’s only a matter of time before that starts to happen for them. I really like what Drew Doughty is doing here in the last couple games with the puck. He’s much more involved in the offensive part of the game. He’s more joining from behind, rather than leading the way on the attack, and I think that’s a real good part of the game for him.’’