Murray postgame quotes (Dec. 10)

Terry Murray’s postgame thoughts…

(on the lack of scoring…)
MURRAY: “Very tough. We’re losing games because of a lack of scoring. We’re looking at one-goal games every night. We had many good opportunities. I really liked the opportunities we had in the third period, to give ourselves an opportunity to tie the game up. A wide-open net. That’s kind of been the story of our offense here in the last while. So the guys are working. We killed off a lot of penalties. There was a great attitude in that part of it. The power play let us down, though. We’re just not getting anything generated on the power play. Five-on-five, I liked our play. There was lots of work, a lot of compete, lots of scoring chances. We had to get a shorthanded goal to get us going. We’ve got to find a way to finish on those golden opportunities.’’

(on the first-period penalties…)
MURRAY: “In the offensive zone, too. The first one, the tripping with Clifford, he’s trying to go after the puck. The high-sticking ones, those are accidental. That happens. You don’t want to see it in the offensive zone. You have to be a lot more careful. You have to get your feet going, go after it. But huge kills. I think it gave us some good adrenaline coming back on the 5-on-5.’’

(on the Kings not playing with desperation…)
MURRAY: “That was my word in (the locker room) after the game. I’m talking about the power play at the end, in the third period and right at the end of the game. There’s a couple loose pucks lying around the front of the net tonight, in the third period. We were coming to the net, rather than being at the net, at critical times. That’s where you have to be more desperate, in a situation where you’re in a 2-1 game and you’ve got five minutes left in the game.’’

(on whether a lack of desperation has been an ongoing problem…)
MURRAY: “No, not when you look at our two third periods, against Anaheim and our game the other night here against Minnesota. We’re putting up 20 shots in the third period. There’s good desperation, hard work, right attitude. Just tonight, in this one situation I’m talking about, that’s where you’ve got to get to your position no matter what.’’

(on the pressure being put on the Kings’ goalies…)
MURRAY: “I hope they’re able to deal with it. Their job is to stop the puck. We gave up 27 shots or so tonight. Their job is to stop the puck, and hopefully we can take care of business at the other end. The two goals tonight, the one on the power play I didn’t like. We got beat inside. Our defenseman got beat. That’s a no-no. You just can’t give up that kind of a play at your net, off that read. But the goalies, I hope they’re dealing with it fine, and it looks like they are. They’re competing and battling, and they come the next day ready to work again. We just have to get things taken care of on the offensive side.’’

(on Brad Richardson’s game…)
MURRAY: “He was real good tonight. He was intense, he was strong on the puck. He had it on his stick in critical moments for a good period of time, and he got rewarded with the shorthanded goal. And he had another great opportunity in the third. So, his game was good tonight.’’