Kings have to `keep pushing the positive’

In talking to Jarret Stoll today, the subject of the Kings’ league-worst offense came up. Stoll has had a different perspective in the last few games, watching from the locker room — contrary to popular thought, scratched/injured players usually watch from the locker room, not the press box — instead of the ice or the bench. After his skate today, Stoll talked about the Kings’ offensive struggles and the players’ level of frustration…

STOLL: “We’re trying a lot of things. We’re talking, we’re looking at video. A lot of times, we’re doing the right things out there. We’re getting chances and they’re not going in. If you have long stretches where you’re absolutely getting no chances at all, as a team, then you’re doing a lot of things wrong. I don’t think we are. I don’t think we’re doing a lot of things wrong out there. We’re working hard. Yes, we have to score more goals, that’s the bottom line, but we have to keep pushing the positive things that we’re doing. That’s one thing that we did in here today. We watched a lot of video of the positives that we put out there last night, as a team. That’s what you’ve got to do. Confidence is a big thing. You have to keep the confidence high. We work on that confidence in practice, on scoring goals and working on your skills and your game. We’ve been doing that. We have to stick with it. We can’t get frustrated. It was definitely a frustrating game last night, to lose 1-0 again, but you’ve got to just keep your head about you and stay positive and have the right attitude. It’s a tough league to win in, and things can snowball very quickly. That’s not going to happen.”

Question: And it’s always hard to have to sit and watch…

STOLL: “Yeah, it always is. When you’re playing well and you’re winning games, it makes it a little bit better when you’re injured, but it’s still hard to watch games and not be out there with your teammates. Sitting on the couch in the dressing room is never fun. It’s just another one of those games, last night, where we had some great chances and didn’t capitalize. Hopefully those will start going in for us. We’ll keep it positive around here, keep it upbeat. We had a great video session here today. Get ready and refocus, reenergize for tomorrow.”

As Stoll noted, Darryl Sutter had most of the Kings go through a video review today, and an off-ice workout, instead of an on-ice skate. Sutter rejected the suggestion that he might have wanted to give the players a mental, as well as a physical, break, in advance of a huge game against Calgary tomorrow.

SUTTER: “I think we accomplished what we wanted. We did some work with them this morning, and did off-ice work. It was a pretty tough game last night. Lots of guys banged up today.”