Kings focus on moving the puck

Practices often have a theme, and given that the Kings’ offensive strugglest persist — two or fewer regulation goals in 13 of 16 games — it’s no surprise that today’s practice centered around improved passing, particularly in terms of moving the puck quickly and accurately from the back end, Terry Murray said.

MURRAY: “Not on the sense of, on the tape, just more of a `Let’s get it going north’ attitude. There are times, in all of the games that we’ve played to date, where I feel there were missed opportunities to get the puck into the forwards’ hands and get onto the attack a little faster. That was the focus here today. As you saw in the drill, there was a counter in there too, the short counter look. We want to get back on the hunt, get on the forecheck immediately, and that’s the responsibility of the D, to recognize where the forwards are with a hard play up.’’

There was more satisfaction with another of Murray’s favorite phrases, net presence. The Kings’ first goal came on a slap shot with some traffic in front, and the second goal came off a deflection because of activity in front of the net.

MURRAY: “There was a pretty good net presence last night. There was a real attitude of finding pucks in the blue paint and staying hard on it. I liked that. That’s where we, in the third period, generated some great scoring opportunities. I thought we were going to find the back of the net a couple times. It didn’t happen, but it’s close and that’s where we have to keep working, with that attitude.’’