Is Ponikarovsky ready for playoff breakthrough?

Will the NHL’s “second season” be more fruitful for Alexei Ponikarovsky than the regular season. When the Kings signed Ponikarovsky to a one-year, $3-million contract last summer, they touted his history of 20-goal seasons. Well, that’s not quite how it worked out this season, as Ponikarovsky played 61 games — sandwiched a round a couple injuries, and scored only five goals, his lowest total since he joined the NHL on a full-time basis in 2003. It’s not surprising, then, that when asked which player might be able to elevate his game and provide a boost, Terry Murray mentioned Ponikarovsky…

MURRAY: “It’s always going to be the team, there’s no question about that, but I think Ponikarovsky is a player that can really step up here, in this kind of a series, because of his size, his strength. The fact that he hasn’t had a real good season, he comes in with a resume of having scored 20 goals over the last five, six, seven years, and this is an opportunity to put this whole thing on the side and have this be viewed as a new opportunity for him to have an impact on this series, using his size and his ability to play in those hard areas in front of the net, taking pucks to the net, and to have the confidence to know that he has scored in the past, and this is now my time to do something on that part of it.”

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