Reading between the lines on Terry Murray

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Kings Coach Terry Murray had some listeners doing a double take during his postgame news conference Saturday and wondering if he might have been spilling a secret.

After the Kings’ 4-3 shootout victory over the Boston Bruins, Murray was asked how his team has handled the pressure of a playoff race that has been excruciatingly tight and figures to stay that way the rest of the season. He began by saying the Kings ‘have to take a big lesson out of this game, a huge lesson,’ because they thrived when they played well as a team and stumbled when players resorted to solo efforts. To illustrate his point, he cited a spectacular one-man show staged by Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby against Calgary in a recent game.

‘Crosby [made an] unbelievable play, breaking through the two defensemen, holding on and making the difference in the game,’ Murray said.

‘I’d like to think that we can get a guy like that some day. Maybe Kopi [Anze Kopitar] can break through and be that player someday but right now we don’t have it. So we need to attack as five and we need to defend as five. And anytime we stray from that it becomes a concern.’

When Murray said he liked to think the Kings can get a game-breaker, was he referring to Atlanta winger Ilya Kovalchuk? He has become a trade target for the Kings -- and probably a half-dozen other teams -- because the Thrashers haven’t been able to re-sign him and don’t want to lose him as a free agent with no return.

That possibility raised a few eyebrows among the assembled media. But it’s not likely that Murray was dropping a hint about Kovalchuk landing here anytime soon.

Murray is generally too honest and blunt for that kind of veiled hint. And remember, he did the unthinkable in 1997 while coaching the Flyers against the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals by saying his team was in ‘a choking situation’ facing a 3-0 series deficit. He was right -- the Flyers lost the next game and he lost his job a few days after that -- but his outspokenness was almost unheard of.

If he had been referring to Kovalchuk on Saturday he likely would have been more forthcoming. Like by starting each of his sentences with the letters K-O-V-A-L-C-H-U-K.

-- Helene Elliott