Chances there, but not goals

After scoring two goals in two games — and only one at even strength — the Kings will look for a spark from rookie Andrei Loktionov, who is slated to the first-line left winger in Tuesday’s home opener against Atlanta. Loktionov showed some offense spark playing in the OHL two years ago, when he had 24 goals and 42 assists in 51 games, plus 11 goals in 20 playoff games. Last season, before injuring his shoulder, Loktionov had nine goals and 15 points in 29 AHL games.

Loktionov did all that playing center, his natural position, and admitted that playing on the wing would be “much different,” but said he looked forward to playing with Kopitar. Loktionov did spend some time playing with Kopitar during power-play drills in training camp. “I like playing with him,’’ Loktionov said. “He is always, with the puck, dangerous, and I always have to be ready for a pass.’’

Terry Murray hopes the move will pay off with greater offense, although Murray said today that he hasn’t been displeased with the Kings’ chances. The Kings outshot Vancouver 32-24 on Saturday but then were outshot 32-22 by Calgary on Sunday.

MURRAY: “We’ve had some very good looks. Schenn, speaking of him, he could have had two goals in the Vancouver game, if the puck is just about two inches higher, or an inch higher, on the goaltender’s pad, it’s in. We had some backdoor looks. I think Ryan Smyth could have had three or four goals himself on backdoor looks that were just kind of a bouncing puck. So I like the opportunities and I like what’s been going on. We need to be better at it. We need to be more consistent with our net presence in the offensive zone, more of a shot mentality. It’s darn hard out there right now. You take a look at the game last night, what we were seeing on the checking part of it. They’ve got one player at our blue line and their four other players are standing at their D-zone blue line. What used to be at the red line, in the neutral-zone trap, has now dropped back to that European look. It’s hard.

“You have to basically keep it pretty simple, get it in and work the boards down low behind the goal line, cycle, low to high and shoot the puck. You’re going to have second and third opportunities that are going to generate those opportunities a lot of times. My feeling is that if you do that consistently, then you’re going to get those opportunities that will come through attacks, possession plays, and you’ll see some nice quality chances off that look. But it’s a hard thing to do in today’s game.”

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.