December 19 postgame quotes: Alec Martinez

On whether the team is currently “buying in”:
I think so. I think that there’s a few things that we’d like to clean up, but we had a game plan tonight. We knew they were going to come in hard. It’s always a battle with San Jose. It’s a really high powered offense for them. I thought that our second period, our start there made the difference, and I think we got a little bit of momentum off that PK, too, so that helped.

On how the Kings generated momentum after killing the three-minute Brown major:
We’ve really taken a focus as of late I think in the past 15 games or so on our PK. I don’t think we were really happy how we started the year with it. We’ve been doing a good job making quick decisions, quick to contact, quick to pucks. That’s making it hard for the opposition’s power play. Obviously you don’t want to take penalties, but it’s a good opportunity to get momentum, and I think that’s what we did.

On the team picking the right times to be physical:
I guess it just comes down to us and San Jose. They’re always going to be physical battles. That’s our M.O. That’s what we want to do. It’s no secret we want to get in on a forecheck and stop up pucks and things like that. We’ve got a bit of a rivalry going. We’ve met in the playoffs. It’s just like Anaheim – it’s always going to be a physical battle.

On winning most of the battles in the game:
That’s what we talk about a lot. That’s a big part of our forecheck both in the neutral zone and the offensive zone, is to create the 50-50 battles and win ‘em. I think we did a good job of that.

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