Murray Is Doing His Part for Kings

When Andy Murray interviewed for the Kings’ coaching job last spring, General Manager Dave Taylor put him on the spot by showing him a lineup and asking where he thought the team would finish.

“I’m smart enough, trying to get the job, not to say ninth or 10th,” Murray said. “I said, ‘I think we can get into the playoffs.’ That’s what [Taylor] said [too], that it would be a battle, but we’re in range of a certain number of teams.”

Taylor was right. Sixth in the West, the Kings are a point from fifth--and two from eighth, the final berth. To miss postseason play, after changing arenas and coaches and surrendering a chunk of the future to acquire Ziggy Palffy, would be devastating.

“I think it would be a major disappointment, for sure,” Murray said. “But I think you only fail when you don’t put everything you have into something.”

So far, the Kings have been a success. Palffy’s skill and two-way play have been revelations, Rob Blake has regained his Norris Trophy form and 34-year-old Luc Robitaille has been exceptional. As a team, they need more discipline, but they’re deeper and better than last season, their fifth non-playoff finish in six seasons.

They also have a sense of direction. That comes largely from Murray, who was coaching Shattuck-St. Mary’s High School in Minnesota a year ago. From their good start through injuries and slumps, he has been a constant. He has cut back on practices as a concession to travel and changed the tone of his speeches from educational to reinforcement, but he hasn’t changed his message.

“I haven’t tried to treat these guys different than high school kids at Shattuck’s,” he said. “The principles are the same at any level: communication, defining responsibility, accountability, having high expectations and being demanding but not demeaning, necessarily. . . .

“I told the guys at the start of the year I’d never question their pride and I’d never question their courage. I hear coaches questioning their teams’ courage. I didn’t play in this league and I won’t do that. I have questioned their work ethic. I’ll say they didn’t work hard enough. I’m sure I’ve upset guys at times, but I think it’s been evenly split. What I tell Rob Blake, Luc Robitaille and Ziggy Palffy, I’ll tell each guy.

“I listened to the players when I talked to them last summer. They said they wanted the team to be more committed and to be held accountable. Any time I’ve challenged them, I’ve said, ‘This is what you guys asked for.’ ”

They didn’t ask for the signs Murray posted around the locker room at Staples Center and the training center, reminders to be tough to beat and to meet certain standards and other sentiments they might have mocked if they weren’t winning.

“It all depends on how you sell ideas,” Murray said. “I treat them as adults, and my feeling is, if you’re selling a message and it’s something that’s right, they should accept it.”

Players have accepted the slogans and signs surprisingly well.

“I don’t know to what extent it works, but it’s a little reminder of what business we’re in,” defenseman Mattias Norstrom said. “You see a picture of the Cup, and it reminds you what you’re playing for. Some of it is cliches, but someone came up with it at one time because it was true.

“We don’t go up to them every day and say, ‘Yeah, this is right.’ It’s not something I would have up on my living room wall, but it’s a good reminder of what we’re all here for.”

They’re here to win, and they’re on pace to exceed 90 points for the first time since 1990-91. Murray directs credit to his players and his assistants.

“I’m glad they need coaches and pay them the way they’re paid, but I think coaches get too much credit when things go well and too much criticism when they don’t,” he said. “Could someone else have done this? Yes. I think it was a good situation to come into and I think the players were determined after last year.”

Murray has helped them find a way to succeed, instead of to accept failure. The rest is up to them.

RAY OF HOPE

After 1,518 games as a Boston Bruin, five-time Norris Trophy winner Ray Bourque was traded to the Colorado Avalanche on Monday.

The Bruins also sent forward Dave Andreychuk to the Avalanche in exchange for forward Brian Rolston, defenseman Martin Grenier, center Sami Pahlsson and Boston’s choice of a first-round pick in either 2000 or 2001.

“I told him, this may or may not be your first choice, Ray, but I think it’s a good team,” Bruin General Manager Harry Sinden said. “Ray said, ‘I do too.’ ”

Others teams reported to be in the hunt were Philadelphia, Detroit, St. Louis and Dallas.

Discouraged by the Bruins’ lack of progress and their recent 1-7-3 collapse, Bourque agreed to leave the only NHL team he has played for. The Bruins say they traded him out of respect for his wishes, but if they had respected him and their fans, they wouldn’t be in this mess. Their penny-pinching refusal to sign Tim Taylor and to quickly re-sign Byron Dafoe hurt morale and depth, and the team never recovered.

Bourque hinted that he was leaving when he requested the game puck Saturday and he didn’t practice Sunday. Then he cleaned out his locker and didn’t play Monday against Ottawa. It’s a sad ending for Bourque, who will leave his family behind--though only for a few months because he’s not signed for next season--and for Bruin fans who have watched a fine franchise decline.

IGGY’S POPPING

Despite an 0-9-1 slump, the Calgary Flames are back in the West playoff chase. They used their sweep of a home-and-home series against Edmonton as an emotional springboard to a 6-1-1 surge that has carried them to eighth.

“Those were games where we were losing all the close ones, and it seemed that it was one bounce or one breakdown,” center Jarome Iginla said of the slump. “Now we realize, down the stretch we’re going to have to find ways and win those one-goal games. And going through those and losing them, as much as they hurt at the time, they helped us as a team and helped us build character. . . . We feel we’re going to make the playoffs.”

If they do, credit goes to Iginla, who has a career-high 54 points and a 16-game point streak, the NHL’s longest this season. Iginla, Valeri Bure (34 goals) and goalie Fred Brathwaite have revived a club that missed the playoffs last season after an economic squeeze led it to trade Theo Fleury. “This year we want to make the playoffs, but we think there [are] bigger things,” Iginla said. “We look at the Ottawa Senators--they had to go through tough times and now they’re a legitimate contender, and that’s what we feel we can do here and what we have developing.”

OSGOOD IS GOOD ENOUGH

Forget about the Red Wings pursuing a replacement for Chris Osgood. General Manager Ken Holland, whose team will play the Kings tonight at Staples Center, said he’s not shopping for a goalie.

“Up until the end of November, when he got injured, he was playing as good as any goalie in the league,” Holland said of Osgood, who had a broken hand. “He was among the leaders in save percentage and might have led in wins. He was out until early January and I don’t know, but maybe he came back too soon and got into some bad habits.

“He’s starting to play real well now. We know he can give us good goaltending, and to get anywhere in the playoffs, you need that. He’s played better of late and we won a Stanley Cup with him.”

SLAP SHOTS

The Sabres’ playoff hopes were crushed Sunday when Michael Peca dislocated his shoulder in a fight with Washington’s Steve Konowalchuk after the buzzer. Peca earlier had leveled Capital defenseman Sergei Gonchar, just back in the lineup after recovering from a neck injury. . . . The Capitals have run into injuries again, but they will lose fewer than 300 man-games to injury, down from 511 last season. “New doctors, new trainers, a lot more stretching and individualized conditioning,” General Manager George McPhee said of the difference. “And we moved some players who had a propensity for injury.”

AWOL Ottawa center Alexei Yashin moved from Switzerland to Italy, but the Senators have shown no new inclination to trade him before next Tuesday’s deadline. Chicago center Doug Gilmour is likely to move, however--perhaps to Dallas--and Tampa Bay may deal defenseman Petr Svoboda. If the Kings considered trading a goalie to get a gritty forward, Stephane Fiset’s groin injury Saturday changed that. They can’t afford to give up Jamie Storr, and Fiset’s value decreased.

Lou Vairo, 1988 U.S. Olympic coach and a winner of the Lester Patrick Award for contributions to hockey in the U.S., will coach Team USA at the World Championships April 28-May 14 at St. Petersburg, Russia. He will be assisted by Dean Blais, coach at the University of North Dakota, and 1980 Olympian Mark Johnson, an assistant coach at the University of Wisconsin. . . . Former King Kevin Stevens, arrested Jan. 23 and charged with possession of a controlled substance, will have a preliminary hearing March 23. He is in the NHL / NHL Players Assn.’s substance-abuse and behavioral health program.