Preparing for Carolina

Tonight's opponents, the Carolina Hurricanes, are off to a 2-1 start. They have scored 11 goals and allowed 10. Carolina has three former Kings, Joe Corvo, Tim Gleason and Frantisek Kaberle, on defense, and this is the first game of the Hurricanes' six-game road trip. Here's what Terry Murray said about preparations for tonight's game...

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Question: Has the energy level been pretty good in practice this week?

MURRAY: ``The energy level is good, it's very good. We haven't played a lot of games, mind you, and we haven't been traveling and everybody is sleeping and eating at home, so that helps. But I think there was a good feeling after the game the other night against Anaheim. The guys worked hard and there was a lot of `compete' for each other. After the game, there's no doubt that they looked at each other and said, `I played hard for my team here tonight.' They're pretty excited about it. So there should be some good carry-over, and there is. We have to bring it to the game tonight, and we're against a good hockey club, a real good skating team. I know them well from the East, and we're going to have to be very alert to defend against this team, that's going to be on the attack.''

Question: Do you change your style much for them?

MURRAY: ``No, we're not going to change our style. It's really important that we get a foundation in place and stick with it and have real consistency. The focus will be on ourselves. We do talk about the opponent, not a lot. We show a couple clips, but it's more about what the L.A. Kings are doing right now with our rebuilding process. That's the way it will be, right through maybe the all-star break, before we start to give the opposition a little more focus in game preparation.''