Eklund: Murray deserves some credit in Kings' run

No he doesn't.

Can we just all fill these pages with your comment starting with the laughing emote?

hey ek any roomers?

Eklund: Murray deserves some credit in Kings' run
- Eklund

his name on the stanley cup will suffice

If Murray is still the coach then the Kings don't even make the playoffs.

Due to a terrible TV schedule, did anyone watch the games this weekend?

- Rayven

Morning.

Murray will be recognized and thanked by the Kings for being such a garbage coach and giving them a reason to fire his candy ass so they can actually hire a real coach in Sutter

Murray was a good coach for developing all the young players. He just couldn't get them to grow up and be ready for a deep run.

Murray probably wouldn't have called up King and Nolan either and that move balanced out the team.

The other day, a good friend of mine asked if I thought the Kings would have gotten this far in the playoffs if they had not fired Terry Murray in December and replaced him Sutter.

Good question. My response: Hell, yes. A huge part of the reason why LA has gelled in the playoffs has been the system that Murray instilled during his tenure.

This is two different situations.

It's hard to say the outcome would have been the same without changing the recipe. Does he deserve some credit for where they are, sure. But you can still say Sutter is the guy that came in and finished the job, or got them further.

How about John Stevens? He fits your mild mannered unemotional job description and he is still with the Kings. They could have chosen him to take over but they didn't. By the way, I loved that last Sutter press conference. It was Torts like. Told the press it was sad that they didn't know anything about playoff hockey, as well as they apparently have no time deadlines, being forty minutes late!

hey ek any roomers?
- TylerSeguin19

The last 2 blogs have been in paragraph style with very little, if not no, grammatical errors.......Ek must be on vacation.

Eklund: Murray deserves some credit in Kings' run
- Eklund

How can he be a big part of this run when the Kings were in danger of missing the playoffs under his watch.

Perhaps for developing Doughty, Kopitar and Brown, even so , no coach gets thanked for developing players.

I think Marc Crawford deserves some credit.

Murray was a good coach for developing all the young players. He just couldn't get them to grow up and be ready for a deep run.

Murray probably wouldn't have called up King and Nolan either and that move balanced out the team.
- onac22

and that is the main reason the Kings wouldnt have gone this far with Murray

The Kings would not have gotten this far with Murray behind the wheel. I liked Murray too but he took this team as far as it could go under him. He does deserve a lot of the credit for putting the defensive foundation in place and he was the perfect coach for this team when he was brought on board. He did his job and taught them how to play 200 feet of the ice.

There are however changes that Sutter did indeed make, which Eklund or whoever wrote this piece did not get correctly. He moved away from the passive 1-2-1 forecheck system and uses a 2-1-2, he gave the forwards the green light for puck pursuit 100% in all three zones and he told the defense to start standing up at the blue line and being more aggressive taking chances offensively.

The Kings were reactive in front of Murray but are proactive with Sutter at the helm. They may be considered subtle changes but the impact those changes made is what we are seeing now.

Eklund: Murray deserves some credit in Kings' run
- Eklund

Murray's "system" would not have made it to the playoffs, let's be honest here. Both Sutter and Murray are preaching defense, but Sutter also recognize the impotance of forechecking, something Murray is not. The team you see on the ice today are playing a Sutter style forechecking with defense attitude. Not a sit back and wait game Murray like to play.

Why does the Kings owe Murray recognition? What coach is recognized for his failure? There's been plenty of coaches fired early and late in a season just to see the team win the cup, but I've never seen a team recognizing the fired coach. That's a** backwards

i dont know much about Murray... but i know with the penguins in 2009, Therrein deserved a lot of credit for the penguins cup win. he worked those guys' a$ses off and put some discipline in them.

Like to see EDM interview Murray as head coach position. He did do well with the young crew in LAK and then finally Sutter took over.

Crawford gets credit for making O'Sullivan look passable enough as an NHLer for Lombardi to acquire Justin Williams...

Murray gets alot of credit for making those young players play. He turned Kopitar into a future Selke candidate. He sparked the careers of Kyle Clifford and Wayne Simmonds. Taught them to play the right way.

Murray did great when he didn't have the talent. He didn't do well enough to adapt his system to the talent that was acquired. You can't have skill players grind for 60 minutes every night.

Sutter has taken the leash off the guys a little bit and the team responded.

Hm, I'm going with a hell no. Sutter holds his players accountable. Murray was so soft with his players, generally lacking any sort of emotion during games to get it done. He helped with the younger players during the first portion of the re-build, though.

The kings dont make the playoffs under Murray. Sutter has let the players be more creative in the O zone too, which the players have really liked.

Murray was already credited by Lombardi and Sutter, and I think he will get plenty credit if the Kings win the Cup, what happened is Murray's time simply ran out after the SJ series and the plug should have been plugged then. His teams abandoned his approach in playoffs in both Vancouver and SJ series though it's hard to say how much of that is his fault and how much is just simple inexperience.

What Sutter brings that was badly needed around here is ACCOUNTABILITY FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, Brown and Kopitar were handled with kid gloves by Murray, while that stuff simply won't fly with Sutter, if you don't perform your role you sit regardless of who you are, that's not to say that Kopitar and Brown are me-first players, probably the opposite - team players to a fault, they needed more focus on their individual performance and someone needed to chew their ass when their performance was crappy and they responded wonderfully.

The team badly needed some emotion and balls injected into the locker room, which Sutter provided as opposed to Xs and Os type of deal that Murray relied on to a fault.

Also the team went from 2.21 GPG under Murray to 2.41 GPG under Sutter and 3.00 GPG after Carter-Johnson trade.

So of course Murray should be credited with the defensive system in place and the fact that nearly every player on the Kings has learned to be a strong two-way player under him, but as someone who has watched the Kings A LOT, I can straight out guarantee you the Kings under Murray likely don't make the playoffs and certainly don't even sniff Western Conference finals, it was just a case of someone whose time was up.

Murray is best for rebuilding young teams as he provides a basic strong defensive system that keeps them in every game and isn't too hard on players making mistakes, so you won't get any youngsters losing their confidence, I'm not sure if Washington is the place for him, I don't know how would he handle Ovechkin, in reality Sutter would probably be ideal for that team more-so than Murray. He would do great at this point in time as an assistant coach again, maybe even a return in Philly.