Yet again, opponents talk about needing to get to Quick

The Los Angeles Kings are leading a playoff series two-games-to-none for the sixth time over the last three postseasons, and Jonathan Quick has allowed three goals over his 130 minutes and 52 seconds of second round action. Of course, these are the ingredients that lead to the familiar refrain of getting bodies to the net, getting in Quick’s sight lines, making it difficult for the Kings’ goalie, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Logan Couture has more or less said the same thing. Ken Hitchcock has said it, Dave Tippett has said it, and every member of the New Jersey Devils probably said it at some point midway through the 2012 Cup Final.

Yesterday, it was Pat Maroon’s turn.

“He’s seeing a lot of pucks. We need to get in his eyes, get in his head a bit,” the burly Ducks forward told Lance Pugmire of the LA Times. “We need to crash and bang, go to the net. We need all 20 of us. It’s what we’ve been doing all year. I think we have the character to do that.”

We’ve heard similar statements before. So does the amount of pressure in front of Quick increase as a series evolves?

“I don’t know if it increases,” Drew Doughty said. “Pressure, I think, is the same throughout the whole playoffs for every single player on the whole team. I think we all take it upon ourselves to be the best player we possibly can be and we know how hard Quickie is on himself. He wants to be the best out there every time. Yeah, teams are going to try to continue to get to him, but I think they do that in the regular season. It doesn’t matter if it’s playoffs or regular season, they’re trying to do the same thing. So that’s our job to not let them get to him. Let him see the first save and he’s going to make it.”

The Kings have been without Willie Mitchell for three and a half games now, and won’t be expecting him back for Game 3. With Robyn Regehr out as well, the Kings’ defense did an admirable job limiting second chances against Anaheim and clearing pucks away from the crease.

“I think our D have done a really good job of defending that,” Doughty said. “We maybe haven’t been the best moving the puck or as good as we usually are. But our defending, I think, has been really, really good. We’re playing physical, we’re boxing guys out, we’re getting under sticks, we’re clearing pucks and that’s our job in the D zone. When we’re doing that, when we’re clearing the bodies, like I said Quickie is going to make the first save.”

In Game 2, Jeff Schultz cleared a dangerous loose puck away from Quick midway through the third period, denying a developing Grade-A opportunity in his Los Angeles debut.

“I think they were on a power play, and they kind of have that play where they stretch a guy wide with speed, and then they dump it in and try and beat out the icing. I think it was a play with our winger, and their winger, and it was kind of just a little chip shot at the net, and there was a quick rebound, and I knew guys were kind of coming in behind me, so it was just a matter of trying to clear it out, get it out of the scoring area and get it into the corner where we could kind of readjust.”

The Kings are in a familiar situation. Of their six two-nothing series leads since the spring of 2012, they’ve returned home for Game 3 and 4 in five series. With that experience in mind, there does appear to be a noticeable improvement in the opponent’s compete level when trailing by two games and hitting the road, according to Jarret Stoll.

“It’s a desperate game, yeah. You don’t want to go down 3-0, obviously,” Stoll said. “For us, coming home having that two-nothing lead, we want to have that killer instinct, too, and that right attitude, that right mindset to win in front of your home fans, but also to try to get that three-nothing lead. We all know that it’s a good lead to have if you can get it, if you’re fortunate enough and lucky enough to play well and get it, but it’s a tough task. They’ve been a pretty good road team, a pretty good home team all season. We expect their best their best in Game 3, and we expect our best.”

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