Kings coach Murray – ‘Kozun needs to work on his game’

File this one under the peaks and valleys of life.

Just ten days ago, Brandon Kozun was the talk of training camp in Los Angeles. Today, he’s headed back to Manchester, New Hampshire to play in the AHL.

He was the breakout star of the two-game Rookie Tournament against the Phoenix Coyotes – scoring a pair of goals in the first game and setting up all three goals in the second one.

It was a performance that he proudly followed up with by stating ‘I kind of put the ball in their court,’

Readers of MayorsManor liked what they saw – voting him ‘most impressive’ in both games. And Kings coach Terry Murray agreed.

Kozun, a sixth round pick in 2009, then played nearly 13 minutes in the team’s first preseason game – generating zero points and one shot on goal.

After practice yesterday, Murray spoke about the decision to include Kozun in the most recent round of (training camp) roster cuts…

“He has the speed, he has the quickness. Obviously, he can score some goals. But, he needs to go and work on his game,” explained Murray. “He needs to go back down to Manchester, where there’s more time – there’s a lot more to the game than what I just talked about. Those are the areas that are going to take some time and are going to take some attention in order for him to nail that part of it down.”

So, Kozun will play right wing for the Monarchs this season. Who will be his center? That remains to be determined, as Andrei Loktionov remains in camp with the Kings. His short-term fate should be determined in the next few days. Stay tuned.

Kozun is currently ranked fourth on the Kings top ten prospects list. To view the full MayorsManor rankings click here.

Murray also spoke about another highly rated Kings prospect yesterday, Tyler Toffoli. For the coach’s evaluation of his camp performance click here.

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