No Lashing Out From Leiweke

Club President Tim Leiweke became so enraged during the Kings’ midseason slump last winter that he took his anger into the locker room, unleashing a wicked verbal assault on the startled players.

He has greeted this season’s slow start, however, with equanimity.

“There’s a difference between bad stretches due to injuries and bad bounces ... and last year when we went through a bad stretch and, quite frankly, we weren’t giving it 100%,” Leiweke said after Saturday’s 4-1 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers. “I’ve got no problems with this team. We’ll fight through this.

“I think this is a good team. I think we’ve just got to get past the injuries. I don’t care if it’s Detroit or if it’s Colorado, when you lose Ziggy Palffy, Aaron Miller, Adam Deadmarsh off your roster and you’ve got guys like [Mattias] Norstrom and Smoke [Bryan Smolinski] playing hurt, you’re going to struggle a little bit and we’re struggling right now. But we’ll fight through it. It’s a long season.”

The Kings’ 4-8-1-2 start is among the worst in their history and three of their victories--over the Thrashers, Mighty Ducks and Columbus Blue Jackets--are against teams that probably won’t make the playoffs. They’re last in the Pacific Division.

“We’ve had a bad stretch of it from an injury standpoint [and] teams have ebbs and flows with confidence,” Leiweke said. “This team clearly had lost its confidence until today. We were not playing poorly but just weren’t getting many breaks. Sports is peaks and valleys and I think the good organizations don’t panic in the valleys and don’t rejoice too much at the peaks. I think we’ve got to keep our wits about ourselves and these guys will come around. But we’ve got to get everybody healthy.”

Newcomer Jason Allison will help, Leiweke said. After a six-week holdout with the Boston Bruins, during which he practiced with the hockey team at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., the all-star center was traded to the Kings on Oct. 24 in a deal that sent Jozef Stumpel and Glen Murray to the Bruins.

“No offense against Merrimack,” Leiweke said, “but it’s going to take him awhile to get game ready and he’s still not there. I think he’s still a couple of weeks away. Too, he has a different set of teammates on his line every night [because of injuries] and I think that makes it even more difficult for everybody to get comfortable....

“So I think it’s going to take a little time for that to click in, but this kid’s a franchise player and in no means, shape or form will we make decisions on whether this has been a good trade or a bad trade in weeks. It will be years to determine, but I’m excited about it because I think he’s a guy to build a franchise around.”

Meanwhile, Leiweke said he has no plans to address the players.

“I don’t like interfering and it’s not my place to go into the locker room unless it requires that kind of message,” he said. “It was a bad situation last year and I’m hoping and I’m pretty certain we won’t be there this year. We’ve got some character in that locker room. I think these guys will be fine.”