Workmanlike win is a key one for Kings

Coach Terry Murray seemed surprised when a reporter suggested that the Kings, though able to grind out a 1-0 victory over the New York Islanders on Saturday at Staples Center, still aren’t out of the woods as far as playing well enough to secure a playoff spot in the tightly bunched Western Conference.

“I didn’t know we were in the woods,” Murray said before reconsidering and agreeing the team’s post-Olympic 3-4-1 slide had been a perilous situation.

“We’re not out of the woods, you’re right,” he said after his team moved up to fifth on the strength of a four-for-four penalty killing effort and a 26-save performance by Jonathan Quick.

“But there is some light out there.”

The Kings’ mood was definitely lighter after Quick’s fourth shutout backed a defensive effort that stretched the team’s penalty-killing streak to 24 over eight games. The Islanders managed only five shots on four power plays and rarely pressured Quick.

Brad Richardson’s first-period goal, set up on a perfectly timed pass from below the goal line from Wayne Simmonds, stood up to the Islanders’ sporadic challenges, including a point-blank shot by Kyle Okposo with 9.6 seconds left that Quick blocked with his shoulder.

It wasn’t scintillating. It wasn’t one that will show up in their postseason highlight reel, whenever their season might end.

But to a team whose confidence was shaken, the two points were a thing of beauty.

“You look at this game and we needed a win and we got a win. I think at this point of the year you take it however you get it,” Kings captain Dustin Brown said.

“We had the intensity on four lines. The only thing I think we lacked was that killer instinct. We’ve had it in certain games where we go out there and put games away, and tonight we didn’t do it. But sometimes I think the closer we get this time of year it’s going to be more difficult to do that.”

The Kings started the game seventh in the West, after Nashville beat Columbus, and they ended the game two spots higher. Still, the road ahead figures to be tough, especially with Colorado coming to Staples Center on Monday for the first in a home-and-home series.

Moving two points closer to their ultimate goal was all that mattered to the Kings Saturday.

“It was a good two points this time of year. No matter how you get it you want two points,” Quick said after his fourth shutout of the season.

The constant movement in the standings, he said, didn’t bother him — as long as the Kings stopped moving downward.

“It’s been like this all year long. You win a couple games, you jump up. You lose a couple games, you drop a couple, so it’s nothing we’re not used to,” he said.

“We’ve been dealing with it all year. There’s a lot of important games coming up here and we’ve just got to be at our best.”

Richardson, moved up to the nominal first line with Anze Kopitar and Simmonds, was the only player able to beat Islander goaltender Dwayne Roloson, rifling a wrist shot past him at 13:35 on a play that began with a turnover by the Islanders in their own zone. Simmonds then controlled it and found Richardson in the slot.

“Simmer made a good play. He kind of waited for the guy to swing away from me and I just tried to shoot it as quick as possible,” Richardson said.

As Murray said, one win isn’t enough to declare the Kings’ slump over, and they figure to be tested more sternly by Colorado on Monday than they were Saturday by the fading Islanders.

“It was a win. It was a very important win,” Murray said. “It was a win that was very hard to come by tonight because this is a game you’re supposed to win as a team and those are the hardest kinds of games to win. But it’s two points. Everybody keeps winning in this conference.

“The desperation that was shown from the very beginning was very good.”

It’s now up to the Kings to determine if it this will be the start of something bigger and better or if it was just a brief trip out of those menacing woods.

Helene.Elliott@latimes.com

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