Kings-Canucks: Notes and quotes from Kings’ 3-2 loss to Vancouver
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Kings Coach Terry Murray, on falling behind, 3-0, to the Canucks in the first period:
“It’s very hard to dig out of a hole like that against that kind of a team. They were just too deep, too good. They were President’s Trophy winners for a reason. We tried, we worked. I liked everything we were trying to do. On the penalty kill we did a real good job on intensity and compete. I thought we were trying hard in the third period to get back in it. It’s too hard to turn the tables sometimes.”
On finding the right lines: “I’m using my top guys, and that’s hard work. When you get caught out there, especially the way [Vancouver] passes the puck, you just can’t make a change. The goalie can’t stop it and there’s a lot of anaerobic work and that is fatigue. When they do come back to the bench I have to give them some extra time to recover and that does throw a little wrench into everything, but that’s hockey. It takes a little while to get it sorted out so they can get back to normal play again.”
On the fourth line, which featured Colin Fraser at center: “I liked our fourth line here tonight with Fraser. That was his first game with the L.A. Kings and not only did he play a pretty determined game, he made a couple plays there in the third period that gave us a look at least.”
Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick:
On the game: “You don’t want to get down one goal, two goals, it doesn’t matter. You always want to score the first goal, and we were unable to do that tonight. The next 50 minutes we were trying to get out of the hole we dug ourselves in but came up a little short there. I thought we fought hard to get back into the game and we did, we made it a game. We had a couple chances at the end to tie it up. We just have to keep battling the way we did there in those last two periods and things will turn around.”
On the Kings’ penalties: “A couple of those calls a few of us wouldn’t agree with, but at the end of the day you always have to be disciplined no matter what. Even if you get a call you don’t think you deserved, it is what it is and you have to fight it off and you have to kill it off.”
On the physical nature of the game: “It happens. It’s part of the game. It’s a physical game. Guys are trying to get to the net and create stuff in front of the net. It’s going to happen. You just deal with it, that’s it. It’s part of the game and you expect it to happen from time to time, and it does.”
Notes:
Anze Kopitar has six points in the last four games (2-4--6). He has eight multipoint games this season. ... Drew Doughty has five points in the last three games (2-3--5). Five of Doughty’s seven points this season have come on the power play. ... Six of Jack Johnson’s seven points this season have come on the power play.
Mike Richards has 10 points in the last 13 games (3-7--10). ... Twenty-seven of the Kings’ 30 shots Thursday came after the first period. ... The Kings are 176 for 299 on faceoffs the last five games (58.9%). ... The Kings have scored a power-play goal in 10 of 16 games this season. ... Doughty is tied with Jaroslav Modry for 10th all-time among Kings defensemen in goals (35). Doughty is two assists away from 100 in his career.
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-- Helene Elliott