It was something you don’t see very often… Terry Murray stopping a practice drill, standing at center ice lecturing his players about substandard performance. Murray’s on-ice demeanor is typically low-key, but early in practice today, he was clearly irritated by what he perceived to be the Kings’ inability to competently complete a simple drill. The talk lasted a couple minutes, and afterward players resumed the same drill. After practice, Murray talked about the need for mental focus.

MURRAY: “You get near the end of the training camp as a player — and I went through it too — and you want to just get yourself going. But you have to have awareness of that. It’s important that you approach every one of these games and practices the right way and get focused and prepare yourself to start the season. That was kind of the message at the start of the practice here today. The conversation that I had was, `This has great meaning here, guys.’ We have to make sure that, not only physically, but in terms of structure and system and emotionally, you have to be ready to play. That’s your responsibility as a player, to come into the games and work at it to get yourself to the right point, where you can hit the ground running at the start of the season. We need some more work.”

Question: Is that the point you tried to make when you stopped practice to talk to them?

MURRAY: “It’s focus and execution. That was just a very fundamental warm-up drill, 7-on-0, passing the puck and regroup, and passes were missing sticks by four, five, six feet. This is the National Hockey League, and there’s a fundamental that you need, the focus to be able to execute with the puck or without it. I thought it got better, but again, there are still areas that need to be improved on.”