Top Lines Need to Produce More

The danger is paralysis through analysis, which is facing the Kings while they try to figure out why a team leading the NHL in scoring through three months has one goal in three games.

It’s a complete turnaround after scoring 15 goals in winning the first three games of a four-game trip that preceded their current plight.

“We’re snake-bit right now,” goalie Jamie Storr said. “But if you start focusing on the little things, you end up pointing fingers at each other.

“We are doing a lot of good things. We need to stay together.”

As much as Coach Andy Murray talks about the need for contributions on offense from the third and fourth lines, the key is scoring from the first two. The top six forwards--Bryan Smolinski, Jozef Stumpel, Ziggy Palffy, Luc Robitaille, Steve Reinprecht and Glen Murray--have to find a way to break out of a drought for the Kings to break out of theirs.

“I’m not concerned with what lies behind,” Andy Murray said. “I’m concerned with what lies ahead. We’ve got to have some players to step up their games.”

Again the keys are the players earning the most money. It’s why they are paid what they are paid.

“Some players who are well-treated by the organization, who want to be well-treated, they need to respond,” the coach said.

They know it.

“We know we have got the guys who can put the puck in the net,” said Eric Belanger, the only King who has done so since Jan. 20.

“We’re in a slump right now. We don’t score as many goals as we want. But the chances are there. We will get a bounce in our favor and it is going to turn around. We just have to stick together and be ready for the next game.”

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The Kings took Sunday off and return to the ice today at HealthSouth Training Center in El Segundo.