Season midpoint leads to meetings

Last night’s game was the 41st of the season for the Kings, the official midpoint. We’ll do all the traditional midseason looks, analysis, etc., on the blog in the next couple days — either on Tuesday or Wednesday — but Terry Murray was asked about his thoughts on the first half of the season, and how he approaches the midpoint as a coach, in terms of evaluating players and communicating his opinions to them…

MURRAY: “We’re in the process of going through individual players right now. Both John (Stevens) and Jamie (Kompon), from the very beginning of training camp, have been reviewing and spending a lot of time with the young guys. I’m pulling players in now, for meetings post-practice, 1-on-1s, and just getting an update and talking about what I expect. This is a good opportunity. We have a nice homestand, and I can do that as we go through these games.”

Question: Your thoughts on the first half of the season?

MURRAY: “We’ve been excellent, and we’ve been disconnected at times. The process we go through, as a team that has high expectations, is right in front of us here, from the start of the year. We know what we did last year, and what the expectations are, to follow up and become a better hockey club this year, and that’s hard to live up sometimes, with a young group of guys, but it’s a process that you go through. You learn, you learn to be connected to the game, emotionally, every night. You’ve got to find a way when the schedule is very heavy, like it has been, to get the job done and trust your system, trust your structure and your teammates. I think we get away from that at times. I just hope that, through it all, as we get to the second half, after the All-Star break, that we’ve learned a lot from what has taken place so far this year.”