Short but sweet

Practice today clocked in at just about a half-hour, short by NHL standards but not shocking given that the Kings played in Dallas last night and have a home game tomorrow night. In general, Terry Murray seems to keep his practices shorter than both Andy Murray and Marc Crawford did, and there seems to be more teaching involved, as indicated in a previous post. Twice in today’s practice, Murray stopped action completely to address small groups of players after a drill. I asked Murray about his brief-but-intense practice philosophy…

MURRAY: “We’ve got two games in less than 48 hours, so 30 minutes (of practice) is good, with good tempo and good execution. There was a purpose to what we wanted to get done, and once we get it done, let’s get off the ice. Sometimes you can stay out a little too long after everything is over, and we’re going to need the energy.”

Question: I’ve seen it from time to time, and a couple times today, where you completely stop practice and talk to a couple guys about a drill. Is there still quite a bit of teaching going on still, more than there would be on a veteran team?

MURRAY: “There’s always teaching going on. We review the game from last night, breaking it down with probably six or seven minutes of clips, and we highlight a few things in the meeting. We try to address those areas that we meet about with a couple drills in practice. It’s probably something that never goes away, as far as the teaching part of it. Whether you’re a young hockey club, like we are, or you’ve been established for 10 years, there’s always the need to readdress, making sure that stuff doesn’t slide too far, and keep the habits good, keep the repetitions going the right way all the time.”

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