Getting back to power-play basics

In case you haven’t noticed, the Kings’ power play is struggling mightily. Coming off a 1-for-9 effort in Saturday’s overtime loss to Minnesota, the Kings are 2-for-22 with the man “advantage” in their last five games and enter tonight ranked 27th in the NHL in power-play efficiency. Detroit’s penalty-kill efficiency is seventh in the league this season, so life doesn’t figure to get much easier for the Kings tonight in that area. I asked Terry Murray this morning what, if anything, there was left to say to the team about trying to improve the power-play unit…

MURRAY: “The power play, to me, can become very complicated and you can over-think it or you can get back to the focal points that work on a consistent basis. I look at Detroit, probably the top team in the league over the last 15 years, and their power play has not changed too much. It’s Rafalski and Lidstrom at the blue line, and it’s, `Let’s get to the puck on Lidstrom’s stick and shoot through traffic.’ … There doesn’t need to be a lot of thinking in that. It’s instinctive play, and that’s what we need. Get ti to Doughty, Johnson and Stoll and get it to the net.”