Kings not frustrated, but hope for more scoring

SUNRISE, Fla. — The Los Angeles Kings will enter Thursday night in seventh place in the Western Conference standings when they face the Florida Panthers at BankAtlantic Center. It’s not all that bad considering the Kings are dead last in the entire League in goals.

“At the end of the day, right now we’re in a playoff spot,” said captain Dustin Brown. “Regardless of our scoring, that’s all that really matters for this team. Do we want to get better at our scoring? Yeah. I think a lot of guys are frustrated in here with the type of scoring, or lack thereof, that we have with this team.

“At the end of the day we’re capable of winning games 1-0 and 2-1 because of the way we play defense. Again, we’ve got to find ways to score more goals but we’re also capable of winning games without scoring many.”

That’s precisely what happened when the Kings faced the Panthers on Dec. 1 at Staples Center. That night, Los Angeles was able to pull out a 2-1 victory despite being outshot 42-26.

The Kings, who will be playing the fourth game in a season-long six-game road trip Thursday night, are coming off a 3-1 victory at Tampa Bay. It was only the 19th time in 54 games this season that Los Angeles had scored more than two goals.

“Hockey is a funny game,” Brown said. “It’s a confidence thing. If you look around at the numbers of the guys in this room, they’re probably having statistically one of their worst years. I’ve never been on a team where you see it happen to such a big number of big guys that are having down years.”

The two biggest disappointments in terms of goal-scoring this season have been second-line wingers Dustin Penner and Jarret Stoll.

Penner scored at least 23 goals four of the last five seasons but has only five goals in 42 games so far. Stoll has five goals in 54 games after finishing with 20 last season.

The center on that line is Mike Richards, who will be playing in his 500th NHL game Thursday night. The former Flyers captain, who scored 11 goals in 13 games in November and December but has only one tally in his last 19 outings, says the victory at Tampa Bay was a good example of how the Kings can have success without putting up big numbers.

“We’re not going to be a team that just throws our sticks on the ice and gets two or three,” Richards said. “We’ve got to go out there and earn it. But at the same time, we’ve got to make the other team work hard and get pressure by our checking and how hard we work. We know our identity. Obviously we’d like to score more goals. Everyone does. But our biggest focus is keeping the puck out of the net and then moving forward.”

Here is the projected lineup for the Kings when they face Florida on Thursday night:

Dustin Brown - Anze Kopitar - Justin Williams
Dustin Penner - Mike Richards - Jarret Stoll
Brad Richardson - Colin Fraser - Trent Hunter
Kyle Clifford - Andrei Loktionov - Trevor Lewis

Rob Scuderi - Drew Doughty
Jack Johnson - Willie Mitchell
Alec Martinez - Matt Greene

Jonathan Quick
Jonathan Bernier