From the locker rooms
KINGS HEAD COACH TERRY MURRAY:
(Re: game recap) "I like the defensive work, but that was a result of what the forwards were doing. A lot of good things in the offensive zone. We played smart and got the puck in. We were aggressive with our speed and the puck. That's part of playing good defense; it was a tremendous part on our offensive end".
(Re: Tom Preissing) "There was more purpose to his game. He knows that there is accountability. He's playing harder. He's always been a smart player. He does a lot of things with the puck, he's strong with his one-on-one and he had some pretty big hits tonight and he was able to score a goal. When he plays that aggressively he can help any team".
(Re: confidence of young team) "It's very important. For them to believe real strong on what it is we're doing is great. The only way they can evaluate their performance because of their youth is by their own points and statistics. If you come away with nothing and a loss you start to get afraid for the young guys. You start to get afraid that they might lose their confidence and then you're going to have to take some drastic measures and maybe taking them out of the lineup and it's the last thing you want to do with young players."
KINGS FORWARD DUSTIN BROWN:
(Re: game recap) "I think we have been playing pretty good hockey and obviously not getting the results that we wanted in a couple of these games at home. Tonight we put forth a good effort and got the result that we wanted."
(Re: game recap) "From top to bottom we had a good game tonight and I think we really supported each other in our defensive zone which made it easy. And then offensively, we kept the puck in their zone. I think our offensive zone play was really good tonight and ate up a lot of the clock."
KINGS DEFENSEMAN DREW DOUGHTY:
(Re: game recap) "We had a great game today. We needed that. We were a little frustrated losing those other games and losing them by one goal. We were right there to win them, but tonight we came out hard and took every opportunity. Our main focus was shots on net and we did that."
(Re: snapping the losing streak) "As I said, some of those losses were heartbreaking. We lost them in the last minute, so it's definitely great to get this first win and that said hopefully we can keep rolling and get some more."
PANTHERS HEAD COACH PETER DEBOER:
(Re: game recap) "We didn't have a good first period. It's inexcusable and you'll have to ask the leadership group in the room and we're just not good enough bottom line."
(Re: lacking player productivity) "It's our job to make them do it and we're at the point in the season now where you have to earn your ice time or you're not going to play. Unfortunately there were too many guys to sit tonight to use benching as a motivation to them."
PANTHERS FORWARD STEPHEN WEISS:
(Re: player's motivation) "It was not a very good game and we just didn't have any legs or anything really. It's not the coaching staff's job to motivate players and it's our job to make sure we are ready to play."
(Re: game recap) "To come out flat like that is not acceptable and we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and figure out why that was."
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J.P. Hoornstra writes about NHL and IHL hockey for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. He welcomes any and all dialogue on the finer points of hockey.
E-mail J.P. at jp.hoornstra@inlandnewspapers.com.
Jill Painter joined the Daily News in 2000 and during the last eight years she's covered the Dodgers, Cal State Northridge, UCLA, Kings, golf and everything in between. Even though she's from Colorado, she still freezes in the Staples Center press box but always manages to thaw her fingers in time to make deadline. E-mail Jill at jill.painter@dailynews
.com.
Vincent Bonsignore is a sports columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News. E-mail Vinny at vincent.bonsignore
@dailynews.com.
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...and the number one star, from your LOS ANGELES KINGS... Number Twelve... Patrick OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO'Sullivan...
(said coach Murray, "Who?")
Haha at Weiss regurgitating DeBoer ad verbatum. Though, I admit the statement was very true. The Panthers were just not here tonight. They have lost a lot of gas after suffering so many injuries and the huge loss of Jokinen. Hopefully Murray will realize how backwards his goalie system is, but alas I am sure we will see Labs in goal for a while again.
During an interview with Preissing, it was stated that the ice was utter cr*p. Any information as to why the ice sucks this year?
I thought O'Sullivan sounded highly positive after the game and excited about his (fourth) line with Boyle and Harrold. I thought that line was excellent, and despite scoring once, Sully just missed picking a corner on that goalie at least 3 other times. so they easily could have had more. Harrold also missed on one great scoring chance.
the other quotes Rich provided recently from him were mostly negative... so it leaves me scratching my head a bit, but I would have liked to see his latest quotes here.
Rich does a great job - but I don't really get the sense that he's that disgruntled at all.
Drew is certainly exciting to watch. I hope he keeps it up and if so, we'll be waiting in a year or two to see how long he signs with the Kings.
O'Sullivans so called positive statements were meant to be sarcastic and polictically correct.By no means is he happy on the 4th line and will through his agent ask for a trade unless things change real quick.I am certain there are many teams in this league that would take him and utilize his skills not to mention the 3 year under paid contract.
Marty - Unless you have insights we don't know about, you're way off. O'Sullivan needs to worry about being an elite player and making things happen. Sure he's getting a little bit of a mind-game at the moment, but if he wants to be on par with Kovalchuk, Zetterberg, Heatly (which he's capable of) he has to do it himself. All the shots he's taking after crossing the blue line remind me of Ron Duguay. He needs to be more creative and penetrate the zone more. Curl after crossing the blue line rather than take a long range shot and drive the net more often. He's not playing poorly right now (he was poor against Det, Van, and Calgary) but he's capable of much much more. I don't know if Murray's games will work, but O'Sullivan can play a lot better.
One more positive to add to the overall picture is how we shut down the Ducks for over 60 minutes. They're scoring like it's for fun right now against all their other opponents and we gave them nothing. It's a testament to how hard the forwards are working and part of the reason that to some it APPEARS Kopitar is struggling. He's not. He's the most gifted player out there for LA though it does look like all the criticism is making him doubt himself now. I hope his dad helps him through this. When is his dad going to be brought in as an asst. coach? hehe.
I definitely agree on Kopitar (another key assist last night, btw) and Sulli the jury is most definitely still out on his comments / attitude. sorry, but I caught 2 sets of quotes from him (live on FSN, and Yahoo!) regarding last night's game and I am still thorougly unconvinced of his "sarcasm"
Aloysius - I could swear that there is one area on the Staples ice that has taken down players repeatedly. I'm a tv viewer so I don't know if its true, but on the normal broadcast, its on the nearside between the blue line and center red. Moulson took a hard spill there in the 2nd game of the season and Harrold went down hard last night in the same area. There are all sorts of "lost edges" that could be due to the ice conditions. Plus, the passing and stick handling look much worse than they probably would on a nice frozen sheet. Its getting to the point we're not going to be calling it "ICE" hockey any more. And they're going to have to have a "FREE CHUNK OF PLEXIGLASS NIGHT" before too long to get rid of all the broken glass. GEEZ.
I hope the Kings aren't lulling themself w/ this win to think they played well. Seriously guys Florida was TERRIBLE! And yet they still scored 2 goals and made a game of it.
These guys need to wake up if they think this game was anything more than a gimme. Yeah the Boyle like looked good but again Kopi was a non-factor. Brown made a nice move to get that goal but seriously most teams in our division would never give him that kind of space and most goalies would have had that one.
LA did not earn this win. It was given to them.