Lighter feel returns to practice

The quarters are fairly tight inside the Columbus practice rink, so the noise reverberates more than usual, but there was quite a bit of chatter and clatter on the ice for Kings practice today. The locker-room music, which had fallen silent yesterday, returned, and players seemed in better spirits after an average-length practice, but one that had up-tempo drills and a lot of activity. Jarret Stoll was pleased with the team’s mood and performance in practice, and interim coach John Stevens said the day’s practice was designed to be a bit different.

STOLL: “That was the best practice we’ve had, obviously since everything went down. We had a couple dead days there, for a couple, that were not fun to be a part of. Yeah, there was a lot of fun, a lot of jump. Guys were working hard and trying to get better. That’s where you’ve got to get better, out there in practice. Take it seriously and do things right. If you don’t have confidence, try to get confidence out there. Try to make plays out there, score goals out there, and that’s what we were trying to do today. It was a lot of fun and hopefully good preparation for tomorrow.’’

STEVENS: “We intentionally went into today just trying to lighten the mood a little bit. We all know what has transpired in the last 24 hours. I think, emotionally, these guys have burned up a lot of energy, just having gone through that. But we came out of last night’s game, and we actually felt good about the way it progressed. We didn’t like the way we started. If you break down the game, a lot of their best chances came from situations where we had the puck and we turned it over by not managing it. There has to be some recognition in making plays at the right times. I thought we were shooting ourselves in the foot early, and Quicker kind of bailed us out a couple times there. But I do think that as the game went on, we got better. Probably emotionally, we got focused on the game a little more. Then certainly in the third period, we really liked some of the things that got done. I thought our net presence was really good. I thought our net drive on the rush was really good. I thought we had good movement in the offensive zone. I know we didn’t score any goals, but we sure created some good looks at the net. Those are some of the things that we’re trying to reinforce moving forward, without losing sight of the fact that we need to hold onto our foundation as a good defensive team, and still try to build offensively.’’