Need some help here

It was pointed out today, as part of the line of questioning about Jonathan Quick, that the Kings, in Quick’s last five games — at least the portions in which he played — have totaled five goals. (Quick, by the way, will tie Felix Potvin’s franchise record with his 71st appearance of the season tomorrow.) Terry Murray was asked about that stat, and the need to provide better support for the goalies…

MURRAY: “We’ve talked about this, after the Olympic break, where our shots went down, and goals for. We’ve seen that, sporadically, getting back to the acceptable level. Last night, certainly, the second half of the game was very positive in that area, and I reinforced that this morning, with some video, in our team meeting. The shot mentality, the net presence. There was a lot of activity around their net last night, and that’s the team that we have shown to be most of the year. Certainly early in the season, that was a big part of our success, goal scoring. That is starting to come back. It’s creeping back since the Olympic break, and I think we’re going to have a breakthrough in that area, because of the looks that we’ve showed in the past recent games.”

As a follow-up question, Murray was asked how to bring that attitude, which the Kings have often displayed in the second and third periods of recent games, into the first period…

MURRAY: “To me, that’s just something that’s in the locker room. That’s an attitude. You’ve got to take into consideration, I suppose, that the other team is desperate. They’re looking to do the good things and play well defensively, but on our side of it, it’s that puck management through the middle of the ice, making sure it’s in good places to recover it, and then it’s the attitude to go get it back. Part of the issue I have had with our team is that our No. 1 guy on the forecheck is not playing hard enough and gritty enough to get the puck stopped. Sometimes the mindset is, `I feel I have to go and get a huge hit on the guy, an impact hit, to stir up pucks.’ That’s an area that we’ve been talking about. That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. If you get in and forecheck with sticks, forecheck some hands and get those kinds of pins and seals, those are successful ways of recovering pucks. Now you need support, obviously. We’ve really slipped away from that.”