Kings Are Starting to Head in Right Direction : Quinn Satisfied With Team’s Start, but Those ‘Self-Defeating Errors’ Still Hurt

The way Coach Pat Quinn sees things, the Kings are moving in the right direction--away from the habits of last season and toward performances that are more acceptable. After a 1-1 split on the road, he is not unhappy with what he has seen.

“We feel we’ve had a good start from the standpoint that we’ve played pretty well in the four games we’ve played,” Quinn said.

Still, he was not happy to come out of Pittsburgh with a 4-3 overtime loss in a game the Kings seemed to have well in hand. “We played well enough in that Pittsburgh game to have won it,” Quinn said. “We have to see if we can eliminate the self-defeating errors.”

He was talking about Larry Playfair’s attempt to clear the puck from deep in his own zone with the Kings holding a 3-2 lead. Playfair gave up the puck to the Penguins’ Craig Simpson, who skated around Playfair and scored the tying goal.

Quinn plugged the leaks by suiting up seven defensemen the next night in Detroit, where the defense was solid for the most part, and the Kings won in overtime, 4-3.

The Kings will need that toughness against the Boston Bruins tonight at 7:30 at the Forum. The Bruins have a strong defense of their own, one that doesn’t allow the puck to linger in their own zone.

“They have traditionally beat us down low,” Quinn said. “That’s exactly how they have beat us, by winning the short races and keeping our people off the puck. For us to win against them, we have to be strong in those areas. We have to stop them from moving the puck out of their zone.”

This Boston team is slightly different in makeup than teams past but similar in style. “They’ll do typical Boston things,” Quinn said. “Drive to the net well. They are a good team down low. They forecheck well. They hold the puck well.”

Gone, it seems, is Boston’s problem in goal. Bill Ranford won a starting job after the two veterans played poorly late last season. Ranford, then a rookie, helped the Bruins get into the playoffs with his poise.

“He had an outstanding game against Winnipeg,” Quinn said. “I just finished looking at the films. I don’t know anything about him, but he sure had a good game.”

Quinn can only hope that his team will have as good a game, not the up-and-down performance that has marked its play so far.