Reunited, Part 3

For the third time this month, Terry Murray likely will go back to a first line of Ryan Smyth, Anze Kopitar and Justin Williams tonight. He tried it in the middle of the month, when Williams returned from his broken leg, and went away from it about a week later. He tried it last week for one game, then went away from it. Now he’s giving it another go. The Kings tried Jeff Halpern as the first-line right winger last night. Halpern didn’t record a shot on goal, and his most memorable contribution to the game was his barreling over of Niklas Backstrom and the interference penalty it drew (the Wild later took a 2-0 lead on a 4-on-4 goal). Here’s what Murray said today about his quest for a consistent first line…

MURRAY: “The comparable is the first 22 games of the season, so it’s a pretty difficult thing to compare against sometimes, because that line was on fire. They played tremendous hockey. Due to circumstances, you get away from it. The few games that they were back together, I liked the attitude. They worked hard, they were getting close. I put Halpern there last night, hoping that there might be a little bit of a breakthrough on a change. It didn’t happen. I’m probably going to put Williams back on that line tonight. I had a meeting with them. It’s, `You guys have to go out and do it.’ I pointed out some areas of concern, from my view, and addressed it with them. Hopefully we can get on page with it.”