LA Kings Cal Petersen pulled, and hears it from coach — He has to be better
# LA Kings Cal Petersen pulled, and hears it from coach — He has to be better
# Contributors
# Summary
Todd McLellan’s press conference was three minutes long Thursday night. Short and undoubtedly not sweet. But after the Kings were on the wrong end of a 6-1 game against Pittsburgh, it’s what you would expect. Calling out his goaltender? That’s not what you would expect, but McLellan didn’t mince words about Cal Petersen, who got pulled after the first period.
# Players
# Staff
# Notes and Quotes
# Todd McLellan
I guess with Cal, it’s no secret we’ve got to get him going. He’s got to play like he can play. He’s an NHL goaltender. He’s an outstanding young man that’s played extremely well at this level. And we’re trying, just like we would with forwards and defensemen, to get him to where he can be. And he has to be better. I can’t stand here and bull—- you guys. It is what it is. But there’s others that have to be better as well in certain situations. We had the momentum, and we couldn’t close it.
Obviously, the group was disappointed. We can’t go down three. It’s as simple as that. We came in between periods talking about some of the things that we haven’t seen almost all year from our group and we’re down by three. So, we’re still figuring a lot of things out.
When I look at the start we had, I thought we played the way we wanted to play. We played fast. We were aggressive. Forced them into situations where they had to turn the puck over and things were going pretty well for us. Even after the first goal, I thought we responded well. But by the time it got to three, unfortunately it wasn’t the same way anymore. Obviously, we’d like to have a couple of those back in the first period. Even if we’re coming out of it at one (down), I think we’re in a much better state mentally.
They deserved to be there. They had a real good night. Not a lot of complaints about those three. If [ Carl Grundstrom, Brendan Lemieux, and Blake Lizotte ] can keep that going, we got one thing that we don’t have to worry about.
# Anze Kopitar
Stuff like that’s going happen. It was frustrating obviously and then coming out for the second, you’re trying to do something. It just wasn’t meant to be tonight.