Starting from scratch?

What do the Kings need to work on, after five losses in eight games? Well, pretty much everything. After practice, when asked about the theme for the next couple days, between games, Terry Murray described something of a back-to-basics approach, the kind of stuff that really should be second nature but can get lost during the course of bad play and bad habits.

MURRAY: “We’re out of sync. Whether it’s our breakouts, our counters…we’re just out of sync on our attacks. Our net presence clearly was not there in the Flyer game. That was talked about and I thought it was better, at times, last night. But all those critical parts of the game are what we need to keep pushing, and get back to spending some time in the next two days in practice getting into more specific game-situation drills. It really is a total review. That doesn’t even include the special teams. Meetings are one way to address that, with the video in the small group, but it’s kind of nice to go on the ice and walk through some stuff too.”

Asked what the Kings need to do in order to turn things around, and have this season avoid looking a lot like last season, alternate captain Matt Greene pointed to factors off the ice.

GREENE: “I think it starts individually. I think it’s everybody’s job, in this room. When you lose a couple games, you can’t point fingers at other people or look elsewhere at what’s going on. You have to take a look at yourself and correct the problem with your own game. That’s how we’re all going to get out of this, by making sure that we’re all, individually, doing what we need to do to win these games and prevent a tailspin, like what happened last year.

“Everyone knows what it takes to win. You can’t use the youth excuse. That was last year. Now it’s about preparation and it’s a personal thing. Everyone has to look at themselves and realize that they have to be better. That’s what is going to make our team better.”