Quick highlights from LA Kings coach Terry Murray’s postgame presser…
On the overall game – “Those [early period goals] are killers. You have a team [Wild] that is a really good defensive team. They’re the number one team in the league. They get a lead, they’re going to protect it; they have in the last games that I’ve watched in Anaheim and San Jose, and it’s a killer. You can’t give up a goal in the first shift like we did, at the start of the period. You work hard, you try to climb out of the hole, you try and turn the tables in the third period with lots of things but sometimes it’s too late and it’s too late tonight.”
On the Kings goals – “Those are the kinds of goals, as far as attitude with pucks to the net and looking for opportunities, but that has to start right away…It’s just an easy play, it’s just a simple D-to-D behind the net play and you’re out of your zone, there was really no pressure. We made the mistake. We put the puck in your teammate’s feet and it ended up going around the boards, they recovered it right back and now we’re scrambling. Those plays are the ones that our haunting us right now, our own mistakes.”
On the post-game speech he gave – “It’s an attitude that pushes you up to the next level. Again I’ve said this to the players before. If you line up everybody on a goal line and you race everybody to the far goal line in this league, the difference is very, very little. There might not be a difference with some teams. Minnesota is the number one team in the league right now. They’re a good team with good balance. But they work hard, they’re intense, and their attitude is right. I like our team a lot. We’ve got good people, most every game we bring the right attitude with the right competitiveness but it has to be there for 60 minutes. That’s the start of the game, the start of the second period. That happens in Anaheim…those things are the difference today.”
On the Kopitar hit – “I was worried about that one. That’s a very dangerous play…I’ve seen too many players blow their knees [on a play like that]… I was very concerned about that one…I watch games around the league and it’s a concern that it happens as often as it does. I don’t get it. I don’t get the attitude, the mentality of the players today. The lack of respect and the jeopardy they’re putting their fellow [players] in with that kind of an attitude. It makes no sense to me. That never happened before. In my generation that never happened.”
More notes and quotes are up on the homepage right now.
The Mayor
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