Special teams: same as it ever was?

There’s been a lot of talk, video and practice, but so far the Kings’ special teams are pretty much where we left them at the end of last season. Entering tonight’s game, the Kings are 2-for-19 on the power play and 8-for-8 on the penalty kill. Of course, there’s been a lot of personnel shuffled in the first three preseason games, but if we’re going to praise the penalty kill, we have to critique the power play also, right? In fairness, the movement with and without the puck has seemed to be improved, but in Sunday’s game against Anaheim, it seemed as though a lot of one-time shots were still being telegraphed. Here’s what Terry Murray said today when asked to assess the power play, followed by some discussion of penalty-kill personnel.

MURRAY: “I’m seeing better movement in the offensive zone. It’s not new, but it’s something that we’re really stressing from the first day of training camp, on the power play, is that kind of movement, the rotations, the quick puck movement and support. I don’t think we did it very well last year. So a lot of this is guys getting habits back in place now, that are not yet instinctive. … The other part is, we have some guys who are holding the puck too long. It’s puck movement that breaks down the penalty-kill box, and I’d rather see the puck coming up top, to your blue-line guys in the umbrella look, more consistently, than the way we do it sometimes.’’

Murray also talked about his seemingly very strong set of options in terms of his two penalty-kill units.

MURRAY: “I think we’ve got four pairs here. We’ve got Richards and Gagne, we’ve got Kopitar and Brown. Kopitar and Brown, their role on the penalty kill is, `Get on, get off quickly.’ The puck is in your end, faceoff, you spend a little time in your end, get it out and get off the ice and get the next group out there. Then there’s Stoll, and we can use different guys with Stolly. Lewis, last year, was right there last year as my No. 1 guy. Brad Richardson is a good guy, so there are a lot of good options.’’