Successful, if not popular

Booing certainly didn’t seem to bother Jack Johnson on Wednesday night. Johnson played his first game against Carolina, the team that drafted him No. 3 overall in 2005, and a segment of fans there still has some bad feelings, as he got some mild booing when he touched the puck. Johnson never signed with the Hurricanes and instead spent two years at the University of Michigan. Carolina traded him to the Kings and he signed shortly thereafter.

Johnson’s ice time had taken a mild dip of late, but Terry Murray had high praise for Johnson’s effort against the Hurricanes.

MURRAY: “Jack played one of his best games of the year. I told him that this morning. I thought he was outstanding in his view of the game, which is from the checking part of it. That’s a team that drafted him. I’m always nervous about that kind of situation. I’m always nervous about a player going back up to Canada and their home area and feeling, `OK, it’s my time to get on the highlight reel,’ and trying to do far too much and the game doesn’t happen that way. I was nervous about that last night with Jack, but he settled in. His whole attitude was, `I’m going to take care of this part of the ice first.’

“He did a great job in moving the puck. His neutral-zone counters were with the right attitude. It’s one play and it’s getting up there the right way, and he was heavy in his play down below the goal line. Very strong. I loved his game last night. That was his best game, in those little subtle parts of the game, that I’ve seen from him in, I can’t put a number but, several games.”

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.