Here’s what Marc Crawford had to say today about the Kings’ goalies, or what’s left of them anyway:
(On the efforts of Jonathan Quick…)
“He’s a hard worker, and you start to see our guy sharpen up with their shooting because he works so hard. Whenever anybody works hard, there’s a byproduct that comes from it. The byproduct, hopefully, is sharpness for us. … Everybody is getting caught up in it now. We talked about the fact that we want to have more enthusiasm and we want to make sure that we’ve got team focus, so we’re trying to do things that are going to keep us having that as a focus. It’s doesn’t guarantee anything, but at the same time it’s a great way to be and I think the guys feel good about how hard they worked today. They feel good about the process from last night. We’ve got to keep building on that. We’ve got to stop the roller coaster that we’ve been having and get more on that high-end plane.”
(On LaBarbera’s recovery time…)
“For the goalie, it’s got to be comfort. You’re not as worried about him getting hit, although he did get hit on the injury. We’re hopeful that it’s going to be very quick. There’s no question in our minds that he’s going to do everything in his power to get back quickly. He’s a very industrious young man and he has a work ethic that’s really second to none in the goaltending position. I’ve been around a lot of great goaltenders and this guy works as hard as anybody. I think his teammates appreciate that and the medical people appreciate that as well. You love to have motivated people. Motivation is a big part of it.”
(On his plan with the goalies until LaBarbera returns…)
“J.S. is really excited about his opportunity. Nobody likes to see their opportunity come because of injury. We’ve been after J.S. to prepare and have great practice habits and be ready and all those sorts of things, to be ready for this type of happening. He’s had the ability to play in long spurts before. If you go back to Toronto, Toronto had Belfour and a couple other people, but J.S. got hot and they rode him. We would like nothing better than to have J.S. get hot and ride him. I like the attitude that Jonathan has come in with. It’s very noticeable how hard he works, and the byproduct of that is that your players try harder. When they see somebody working and battling and giving a second effort, like that kid is showing, they want to bury (shots) and it makes their sharpness that much better. So he’s doing his job right now. We’re telling him to stay prepared, because he could possibly get into a game as well.
“We’ve had a logjam of goaltenders here, with Cloutier, Ersberg and Quick coming in. Bernier was here at the start of the year, along with LaBarbera and Aubin. So we had six goaltenders and when you look at it, we only really had four spots. He had to start in the East Coast league and he played well there. He had a little bit of an injury in Manchester, when he got the call to go up there, but he’s healthy now. He’s made a rapid rise. It’s a nice story for the East Coast league, because it is a good developmental league. He’s gotten an opportunity, because of the number of injuries we’ve had in our system, and he has taken advantage of it and that’s what you want. You want the great attitude and you want somebody to take advantage. The game is simple. Just go out and work hard and present yourself in a good light. He’s doing that.”
