Faceoff woes continue

Jarret Stoll has said, since he started practicing in training camp, that the wrist arthritis that kept him off the ice at the start of camp was no longer an issue. It’s hard, though, to find another reason for Stoll’s struggles in the faceoff circle. Stoll lost 8 of 11 faceoffs Saturday, and the Kings lost 35 of 58 as a team. Stoll won 73 percent of draws against San Jose, but his other three games have been 28.6, 27.3 and 27.3, respectively. Terry Murray was asked today if he thought Stoll was playing at 100 percent, and about the faceoff struggles in general (the Kings are worst in the NHL, at 40.4 percent).

MURRAY: “I don’t know the answer. He’s got to get to be 100 percent though, because I’m not going to make a change on it. He’s a center iceman, and he’s one of the better center icemen on our team and in the game. He had great numbers last year, so he’s got to work through it.

“I watched the game again, and there were a lot of 50-50 pucks there that (the Blues) came up with. Maybe we need to be better on the support. We lost more clean in the first two games. They were just 100 percent lost, right back, clean. But last night there was some battling that happened for a couple seconds before possession was gained, and that’s a step in the right direction. We need more of that, just to have that kind of an attitude.”

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