alt="LA Kings Insider with Rich Hammond" />In the Kings’ first two games after the Olympics, the power play was a strength, as the Kings went 3-for-5 on the man advantage. Last night, it was a clear negative, particularly in the second period. The Kings gave up a shorthanded goal, yes, but they also had six minutes of power play time in which they accomplished little. The Kings totaled four shots on goal on the power play last night. Montreal had four shorthanded shots. Today, I asked Terry Murray whether the power plays were a source of lost momentum, and he discussed it and put it in context with the rest of the game…
MURRAY: “That’s a part of it. You always look at your special teams at the end of the day. They’re so important in the game. They always have been, I suppose, but post-lockout there’s been more opportunities, so you look at it as a critical time. You end up with, sometimes, 10-12 minutes of special-teams time, so it’s important to get some results on a fairly consistent basis. The power play, we had some opportunities. There was some good offensive-zone time. We got some quality chances, we just didn’t get the end result that we needed.
“That was a part of it. Certainly, the Montreal Canadien attitude at the start of the game was that, `We need this game.’ They came out with a lot of desperation and capitalized right away. To me, we were playing hockey, we were ready to play, but it has to be at another level right now. It’s that playoff mode that we need to show every night. I thought we started to show that later in the game. We met on it today, on that same kind of an attitude that it’s important to bring every night. We’re young, and we’re going through it. We’re experiencing it. That’s a good thing. The painful part is that you have to go through it and learn from it. So we’ve got to prepared to come out tomorrow.”
Come ready to play.
That’s it. No secret formula, no weird coaching strategy.
Come ready to play. Hit people, forecheck relentlessly.
Earn it!!!!!!!
Scary that Murray thought the PP had some chances against Montreal. They were horrible all night.
Hammond, please ask Murray why he is in love with Brown and Kopitar together. It has never worked.
It’s not surprising there’s no execution on a powerplay run by an ex roller hockey defenseman. It seems our point men are the only ones in the NHL told to sit stationary on the blueline. Every pass is so telegraphed, their not even getting the oppurtunities to make the plays.
@Sydor25,
And why Frolov and Kopitar together isn’t a possibility. Don’t get me wrong, I love the way Brown plays, but I don’t think he’s a top line guy, or at least he’s not a good fit with Kopitar as the top line center.
I’d really like to see the following lines when Williams comes back:
Frolov-Kopitar-Williams
Smyth-Stoll-Brown
Richardson/Modin-Handzus-Simmonds
Modin/Richardson-Halpern-Clune
@Sydor25, I couldn’t agree more with the Brown / Kopi combo! On the other hand, other than early in the year, Kopi’s had good success with Richie & Simmer. I doubt this would happen but I’d like to try…
Richardson – Kopitar – Simmonds
Smyth – Stoll – Williams
Frolov – Zeus – Modin
Brown – Halpern – Clune
@Nyck and its good enough for 9th in the league…..,
Doughty and Johnson may be the future…but what we need is the present. Why in the world was Johnson on the Olympic team anyway. He has potential. GREAT!! I can think of 2 King’s defensemen that earned the right to be there in 2010. Scuderi in particular earned the chance. What has Johnson earned to this point? (minus squared) Again, it is not a knock…those two guys may be the future…but it is a future connected closely to at least 4 other defensemen. We need some unity in the defensive corp!!
The pp is even more frightening when you watch it up close at practice, as I did today after the meeting with Deano. Very predictable and marginal execution.
We may be stuck at 80 points for a while, but I hope not.
@roadtripper, no no, first line should be:
Smyth-Kopitar-Williams
Brown-Stoll-Modin
.
.
@Capt Jam, you must have been watching the 3rd/4th line. I thought the execution was good. Brown made great decisions depending on what the D gave him. I thought DD was unstoppable up top with his lateral movement. I also thought the short, quick passes across the crease were great.
@roadtripper, but you nailed the second best option for the 1st line…