Kings get a ‘wake-up call’ in Cal Petersen demotion, and a win over Arizona

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• News post

• Eric Stephens

Cal Petersen’s surprise demotion to the American Hockey League, according to GM Rob Blake, wasn’t about sending a message through the Kings locker room. It’s about trying to get the goaltender back to the form that made the Kings believe Petersen was ready to take the net from Jonathan Quick and be the No. 1.

• Cal Petersen
• Drew Doughty
• Anze Kopitar
• Kevin Fiala
• Phillip Danault

• Rob Blake
• Todd McLellan

# Rob Blake

We didn’t do it for a message. We feel we can help [Cal Petersen]. Get him in a situation where we can get him playing games. We believe he’s a good goalie and we believe he’s going to come back in here and help us.

I don’t think I’m the only one saying it. The players have said it. Todd said it. Sometimes you get in a room together with everybody. That theme is common amongst our group.

He’s just going to go down. I trust in Billy Ranford and our goalie coaches to continue to work with him. But I think the biggest thing from our point is he’s got to get into games continuously here to get his game back to the level that he wants and that we want.

# Drew Doughty

It’s having a wake-up call for everybody in the organization if you’re not performing. We all need to perform better. I think that’s just the bottom line. Defensively, we’ve been really, really shaky for a lot of games. We haven’t helped our goaltending at all, to be honest. I guess, yeah, it’s just a wake-up call to everybody. We need to step up. Play better. We have a better team than we’ve shown this year.

We played determined hockey. It’s not the playoffs yet but we have to have that mentality right now because we have more games played than a lot of teams. And that’s kind of why we’re in that spot and we need to win games. I think we showed a good playoff mentality in that third period and played really well.

Every single player needs to buy in to wanting to play a little bit of defense first. Yes, a lot of forwards, they want to score goals and we need them to do that. As a unit, as a team, we need to play good defensive hockey and we need to be able to rely on every single guy to be put in a spot to play that way. I think everyone realizes that and I think everyone is going to try really hard to do that tonight and for the future. It needs to start tonight, because we don’t have time to waste.

# Todd McLellan

I thought that the end of the second, coming back, set us up for the third. I thought we handled the third well. We were patient. We didn’t play out of our skin to try and win. We played in our skin to do it. And then you knew they were going to have a push near the end, and we defended pretty well.

The individual is the most important thing right now and that’s Cal Petersen. He is a tremendous goaltender. He’s an unreal human being and we care about him. When I say we, that’s everybody. That’s the training staff, the coaches. … We care about him, and we want him back. And he’s going to get an opportunity to work on his game there. He’ll get lots of help. He’ll get many reps. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see him back here and playing real sharp. Can it send a message to the team? It damn well should. Because we share in that transaction. All of us do.

# Phillip Danault

We are in a playoff spot right now and we know how much better we could be and how much better we want to be too. We all know we have all the tools here to do it and to be better defensively. It’s a big move and I think it’s going to wake up a lot of guys here. Starting with us veterans. We have to lead the way. As a group, definitely we need everyone.

# Anze Kopitar

We’re all pros. We all know what we’ve got to do. Ultimately this business comes down to wins and losses. It’s a lot more fun when you win games.