Just following the calendar

Given the opportunity, Terry Murray passed on the chance to attribute part of the Kings’ recent slump to scheduling. To be certain, the scheduling has been a bit odd. Starting Nov. 11, the Kings played eight games in 14 days. Then, over the next 14 days — a period which ends next Thursday — the Kings will have played only four games. Later this month, there’s a stretch of four games in five nights and seven games in 12 nights. Then again, every team, in every sport, for decades, can claim some beef with the way the league schedules games…

MURRAY: “I’m not going to go there. This is the NHL. That’s the way it is, baby. You’ve got to play. The schedule, it is what it is. We have the luxury of having that schedule in our hands in July, and we can take a good look at it and you pick the time, place, spot. You know when to rest. You know when you’ve got a heavy part of the workload coming up. You go play the games.

“If you’ve got a heavy workload, you keep the shifts short, you keep the tempo high, get off the ice and let your other teammates go out and do the job. If you go through like that, everything is OK. Injuries, again, I don’t go there. That’s part of hockey. That’s pro sports. You’ve got to have people step up and take advantage of those opportunities. There’s no excuse there. There’s no reason there. It’s, `Go play hockey.”’