Regehr characterizes defensive efforts

The Kings practiced on Sunday at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, and while Alec Martinez didn’t take the ice – he’s day-to-day with “concussion-like symptoms,” Darryl Sutter said – 13 other players did.

On the ice at Nationwide Arena for practice: 2, 3, 5, 6, 13, 15, 22, 37, 44, 71, 73, 74, 31. No 27.

— Jon Rosen (@lakingsinsider) February 8, 2015

One of those 13 players was Robyn Regehr, who inherited a wider workload after Martinez’s injury, drawing exactly 29 minutes of action in Los Angeles’ 4-2 win at Tampa Bay Saturday night. It was the most ice time he had seen in a game since logging 32 minutes and two seconds in a 6-5 Calgary shootout win at Vancouver on December 23, 2005.

Regehr, a 34-year-old with 1,126 regular season and playoff games to his name, said he felt fine the morning after a long night of work.

“For us defensemen, there’s a lot of opportunity to be on the ice. I think we did a pretty decent job as a defensive corps,” he said. “We were fairly solid. There are still some things we looked at this morning that we’re going to work on, but that’s usually the way it is with hockey. You’re constantly making adjustments.”

Regehr continued to elaborate on the decision to take the ice when many veterans opted not to, as well as several themes surrounding the Kings’ season and Saturday’s performance.

On how he made the decision to take the ice on Sunday:
Just how my body feels. Sometimes it’s nice to get rest, but sometimes it’s nice just to stretch the legs out and go feel the puck and do things like that. Darryl leaves it up to the players on what you feel like and what you think you need. That’s part of being a professional. Whether it’s if you feel like you don’t have to go on the ice, which some guys were like that, they got some work in off the ice, and if you feel like you want to go out there and work on some things, you go out there. It’s a nice position to be in, but that being said, it leaves the responsibility in the hands of the players, and you’ve got to make sure that as a player that you’re ready to perform and be at your best tomorrow to win a game, because that’s what it’s all about.

On whether abstracts such as desperation and urgency have materialized:
You can use whatever words I guess you want as a player in order to try to get yourself ready or try to get others ready. But I think the biggest thing is that we go out there as individuals and are sharp right off the bat, especially on the road, where we’ve struggled. Our starts haven’t really been very good, and you saw that we had a really good start last game and just were solid after that. There were a few lulls and dips in our game, but the most important thing, we managed to come back and you just refocus, you get a few good shifts under you, and then you kind of get back in the groove again, and we were able to do that. There’s too many times in the previous part of the season where we haven’t been able to recover from that. Whether we’ve given up quick goals or just played bad for five or 10 minutes of a game or something like that, we’re trying to eliminate that as much as possible, and I think we did a decent job of that last night. [Reporter: That fourth goal was huge, obviously.] Yeah, for sure, it was. We knew that they would be pressing. They did right out at the start of the second period, but also at the start of the third, too, and to get that fourth goal, insurance, was just huge for us.

On occasionally skating alongside Drew Doughty:
I’ve played with Drew in the past. I feel comfortable with him, but I think what it comes down to is a coaching decision on who they feel are people that are being the most effective that night, or that situation. So there were a lot of things I think that go into that decision, but we had to rotate around last night because of the odd number, so there were a bunch of different combinations happening. As a player, I have to be ready to play with whoever they decide to put me out there with, and whether that’s Drew or Jamie, the only difference for me is if – in the past I’ve played with Alec, and then he’s a left hander playing the right side, which that changes things a little bit for me, playing with him that way and passing to him and things like that. But other than that, it’s just knowing what players, what their tendencies are, what they like to do, and playing with them, being effective. That’s the thing. If you’re effective, you’re going to get a chance to play and to play with whoever else is being effective.

On whether the early lead gave the Kings the mental edge:
I think it’s much easier to just feel a little bit more confident, and I don’t want to say ‘comfortable,’ but just the confidence and not ‘squeeze the sticks,’ not panic. We’ve been in some situations where we haven’t handled a poor start very well, and it was really nice to have a good start and just be able to just keep it going, keep rolling. If you’re on the bench and you see the forward line in front of you or the defensive pair in front of you have a really good shift, you’re excited to be out there and go out there and say, ‘Man, I want to follow this up and continue on.’ That’s how you build momentum and a really strong game, and I think that’s something that started happening last night with the type of start that we had, and we need to continue to do that here and do a better job of that, because we really haven’t had much opportunity to do that on the road.

On not panicking when the puck was in the Kings’ zone:
You’re going to have to play in your zone at some point, but for us, when we’re really on, we’re not allowing the…offensive attack or the puck to move around from side-to-side. We’re not allowing the puck to move from down low to behind the net, or down low to up top to the defensemen, which then starts a whole other activation for the opposition and their players and what they want to do. So if the puck comes in and we can keep it contained to one area, get in there quickly, stop the play, and then away we go, that’s a big key for us.

On whether the Kings are more aggressive early in games and “take more chances”:
I don’t know about ‘take more chances,’ but I think it’s very good to be aggressive. I think where we can really do a better job for all of us is just being more aggressive on the puck. If you’ve been around hockey and watched it long enough, you realize that when everyone is aggressive out there, even if there are little mistakes that are made, usually what happens is your teammate will end up being there covering for you because everyone’s working hard and being aggressive and doing the things that they should and you cover over those little minor mistakes. When you’re hesitating, ‘should I go, shouldn’t I go?’ you’re [badly positioned] or something like that, and there’s hesitation or just complacency in your game, that’s I think, when you really get exposed, and there are major breakdowns that start happening. So it is very good to be aggressive, and I think that’s an area that we can be better in, and especially off the start of the game because that’s a time where you really set the tempo of the game and show the other team ‘this is how we’re going to play in this game,’ and you go from there.