Power-play improvement? A familiar theme

In non-high-stick news, the power-play slump marches on for the Kings. They’re now 0-for-19 with the man advantage in their last six games, and while their first couple power plays in Thursday night’s game looked solid, things seemed to break down as the game went on. Today, Terry Murray talked about the biggest area of needed improvement, on the power play, going forward…

MURRAY: “Net presence, and it carries right through to the 5-on-5, or vice versa. When you’re shooting pucks from the top, in the umbrella look that we’re setting up, there clearly needs to be one (player) at the net, and preferably two at the net. But it’s not just at the net. You’re covering the posts. You have to play goaltender, and be in the goaltenders’s line of sight. You have to work hard at that. You know that he’s going to be trying to find the puck, from different views around you. You have to have your head on a swivel, that awareness to try to get back to that position that he’s looking around.

“It’s an art. It’s a skill in itself, and some teams have those guys that do a great job at it. I think Handzus does a wonderful job in that area. Ryan Smyth is out there. He does a good job in screening goaltenders, but he sometimes steps aside and looks to tip the puck with his stick, and that’s when the goaltender is able to pick it up. If you get it on your stick and it tips under the crossbar, then it’s a great goal. But last night, or in the last couple games, that puck is just not finding his stick, and we’re making it easy for the goaltenders. So we’re going to work at it. We’ve got to find that guy that is going to do it consistently.”