Practice 12-14 – Todays “Cleanse” + A Tale of 2 Halves, Bump-Up Breakdowns, Salin To WJC

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• News post

• Zach Dooley

Practice Day in Beantown. The LA Kings hit the ice this afternoon for a full-team skate here in Boston. TD Garden is the home of tomorrow evening’s tilt between the Kings and Bruins and that’s where the Kings hit the ice for practice earlier today.

• Blake Lizotte
• Phillip Danault
• Alex Iafallo
• Otto Salin

• Todd McLellan
• Mark Yannetti

# Todd McLellan

It’s cliche to say we put it behind us and we move on, we didn’t do that. We cleansed today. We talked about a number of different things that went right for us early and what went wrong for us late. Penalties and penalty kill in particular, we tried to address it.

I actually think it was in the second period, to tell you the truth, it wasn’t the third. We were pretty direct with our entries early and then we had a couple Harlem Globetrotter entries, if you will, where we tried to make cute plays and that fed their transition. They got a little bit confidence, started to feel better and went the other way. We got on the power play and we took a penalty right at the net and that was their first opportunity to get their unit out and get going and they did a good job of it. They just gained momentum from there.

We had three keys last night that we felt we needed to execute to have success, and they were evident in the first half of the game. Why they didn’t show up in the second half, part of it’s because you’re on the penalty kill for six [times] in a 25-minute span. Two, are you patient enough, do you have the detail or the discipline to stick with it? It was a complete opposite game, one team controlled the first half, the second team controlled the second half. Buffalo did a better job of sticking with it and they were rewarded with a big win.

# Blake Lizotte

I think getting some o-zone time and creating some momentum and energy, maybe getting a whistle in the o-zone even, so you don’t have any scoring chances against, that’s when momentum goes back to the other team.

# Phillip Danault

Simple, just get it deep and go grind them down. Execution, just focusing on the little details and not taking it too hard or too far. It’s a challenge to go out after a goal, the other team has confidence, so we that next shift, we need to work on that.

# Alex Iafallo

Just getting a good forecheck or having a solid shift in the offensive zone. We need to start having harder shifts after we get scored on or even when we score, we haven’t had good shifts after that either, make sure we don’t fall apart.

# Mark Yannetti

[Otto Salin]’s skating was the first thing that stood out, his skating is excellent, His skating allows him to get into situations and get out of them [both good and bad]. He has the ability to skate the puck up the ice and push the pace; that’s a great thing. That’s an ingredient you can’t add later down the line and you can always pull a guy back. The fact that [Salin] can skate himself in and out of trouble at this stage of his career is a good thing… and he has the ability to play more of controlled game.