After the Kings defeated the Wild 5-2 in front of another sell out crowd at Staples Center on Saturday night, here was some of the reaction coming from both locker rooms…
– Dustin Brown on the overall game: “The last four periods is a tell tale sign of how we need to play with the puck. The defense moved the puck a little quicker getting it up the ice.”
– Brown on the power play goal by Alec Martinez: “That was probably the turning point in the game, really. We had a five-minute opportunity to really put the nail in the coffin and [Justin] Williams made a good play from low and we found a goal to go up 2-0 and we went from there.”
– Coach Terry Murray on his milestone game: “It doesn’t really feel any different, anything special. It’s a game that was very important for us to win. I really liked the focus coming into the game tonight. The players came out right away with the kind of intensity and attitude of moving their feet, getting pucks going north, and recovering pucks. That was a huge first goal that Fraser scored on a nice play by Moreau from behind the net. That’s what I like about the milestone: the fact that the team played well and won the game.”
– Brown on Murray’s special night: “It’s probably harder as a coach to get to 1,000 games than it is a player… It’s a big milestone for him…Putting all that stuff aside, we just needed two points…His coaching style suits us very well. He’s not a screamer; he’s not a yeller. When he first got here we didn’t have much of a system, especially in our D[efensive] zone. We went to one of the best defensive teams over the last three years. It’s a lot about the system he brought in and really hammered home with us, and guys buying in too.”
Murray on being hired to coach the Kings: “You are forever grateful to people who give you another chance. It’s great to be here and I love the environment and the attitude of what the players are showing. They’re a young group that working hard for each other, wants to win for each other. We’re moving in the right direction. We’re a good hockey club and this can be a good club for a lot of years because of the youth.”
Minnesota coach Mike Yeo on the overall game: “Right from the drop of the puck we weren’t ready to play. You always get what you deserve, or at least way more than often you get what you deserve. We got what we deserved tonight.”
Yeo on his team’s recent play: “As far as I’m concerned we played three bad games in a row. I don’t want to say I don’t know, because I know. We think we’re there; we’re not even close. We think that we are good enough because we’ve won five games in a row that we’re there but we’re not even close. We said this when we were winning games; we aren’t there. Along the way we forgot what we had to put in to win hockey games.”
Wild forward Mikko Koivu on the overall game: “A lot of things went wrong. It’s too early to analyze it. I guess a lot of things went wrong so it’s not only the D zone. Obviously we are not spending time on the O zone.”
Koivu on the loss: “Not even close [to the most disappointing loss of my career]. I’ve been playing hockey for twenty years so I’ve had worse games than that, and bigger ones too.”
The Kings had today off, no practice.
If you missed the earlier tweets and facebook posts, Dustin Penner has been placed on injured reserve, retroactive to November 10. He’ll miss at least the next two games.
For the latest news on the LA Kings prospects, click here.
The Mayor
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