Addressing “a little bit of panic” in their game, the Kings get back to work (+ DL observation)

The Kings took the ice at KeyBank Arena on Wednesday some 15 hours after exiting the ice exiting it following one of their more difficult losses of a season that has shown signs of volatility but hasn’t yet cost them dearly in the standings. The particulars don’t need to be rehashed – if you’re reading “LA Kings Insider,” you’re probably aware of the events of the second period Tuesday night – but after getting through some special teams and individual skill work, the team returned to the dressing room and spoke of a day in which there were multiple references of the need to get back to “work.”

“It’s one of those work things,” Anze Kopitar said. “You come off a game where, we know the play that we had last night, we all know, we’re not kidding ourselves, it was not nearly as good as it needed to be, so today was a work day, sharpen up again, work on some things and go back at it again. We can’t mope and pout at the same time, the new game’s coming tomorrow and we’ve got to be ready for it.”

Like Kopitar, Dustin Brown reinforced the workmanlike approach to the mid-season practice.

“It was just another work day to get back,” he said. “I mean, that’s the great thing about this league is we didn’t play nearly as well as we wanted to last night, we have an opportunity tomorrow night to get back on track. Sometimes you talk about how many games you play, I think it’s always better to play more. You get an opportunity to improve and get better and today is about tomorrow.”

Brown confirmed that the players held a brief meeting after Tuesday’s game, a closed-door discussion featuring details the players declined to share intricately with reporters.

“I mean, we had a meeting as players and we talked to the coaches a lot today so it’s, again, it’s about getting back on track,” he said. “We haven’t played well probably the last five, six games so you address it and a little bit of panic in our game right now, that’s when you’ve got to come together and support each other.”

Dean Lombardi, in a conversation with LA Kings Insider and LA Times columnist Helene Elliott, addressed Jeff Carter’s Tuesday night remark that the Kings were “a fragile team” by saying, “I think these guys have been through so much and when you’ve got a guy that’s got two rings on him I think he’ll figure it out. … These guys have been through tougher periods than this, so if they can get through what they’ve gotten through in the past, then they can figure it out.”

He also noted that despite the challenges in goaltending with Jonathan Quick looking at a mid-February return – Los Angeles ranks 29th in the league with an .896 save percentage – that several of the team’s top players are not playing to the pinnacle of their ability. I asked him about Drew Doughty, who is having a fine season statistically and continues to eat up heavy minutes as a plus-player against the opposition’s top competition but hasn’t appeared to match the level of his Norris Trophy season through 28 games.

“That’s the one thing about it, all year whether it’s been through the injuries or guys coming back from the World Cup, I don’t think a lot of our guys have been at the top of their game. You can go to the other side of the coin and say, ‘OK, who’s really at the top of their game?’ Certainly Jeff had a period there but we’ve had a lot of good players that I don’t think they’re at the top of their game. So whether it’s the whole thing with the World Cup and coming back stale or tired, I don’t know, but eventually I think those guys are too good of players not to figure it out. But I think it could go to the other side of the equation, like, who has? You know, again, we went through the whole injury thing and obviously it was a huge adjustment on the back, with losing Quick, but I’ve looked at this whole scenario whether it was the injuries or the goaltending, that if you can get through you’re going to come out of this a lot better team. I think it’s forced, it’s a challenge on a lot of fronts, but like I said , it’s Drew or [others], there’s a lot of guys who I don’t think have been at the top of their game and to their credit, I think they knew it.”

This isn’t exactly the end of days; Los Angeles is still 7-3-1 in its last 11 games and has averaged three goals per game since being shut out in back-to-back games that bridged October and November. But with eight more road games coming before the team returns home to face San Jose on New Year’s Eve, the players are certainly aware of the need to avoid stretches such as the one endured in the second period on Tuesday.

“…It’s about work, it’s about everybody looking at themselves and just realizing we’ve got to play better,” Kopitar said. “Whether that’s throwing more hits, making more plays, stopping more pucks, scoring more goals, it’s everyone’s job. It’s not the one guy that we’re going to look up to and say ‘well, you’ve got to pull it.’ We’ve always proud ourselves to be and go through tough times and that’s what we’re going to have to do now.”

Anze Kopitar, on whether Darryl Sutter’s approach with the players has evolved:
Well, there’s times when he’s hard and there’s times when he’s trying to encourage guys and pissed off and it’s all of the above. That’s how the coaches are, there’s no secrets. Obviously right now are not the most fun times, but it is what it is.

Brown, on whether the team addressed Tuesday’s second period at practice:
I mean, we addressed it off the ice, what needed to happen and what didn’t happen. We worked power play today, we didn’t have any power play opportunities, so we’re just trying to stay sharp on it. Just working on our transition game.