Reality is hard to accept for Kings

The healing process has begun for the Kings, but Peter Harrold’s broken wrist, Drew Doughty’s sprained thumb and Jonathan Quick’s sore shoulder are likely to mend well before the disappointment over their six-game playoff loss to Vancouver begins to fade.

While preparing for final physicals and meetings, players and Coach Terry Murray insisted they thought they were going to play a seventh game Tuesday against the Canucks — and that they could have won it.

Not skating or watching video “feels really weird,� forward Brad Richardson said Tuesday. “It was such a tough series. It hasn’t sunk in yet, to be honest with you. It will and then you sit back and reflect on the season.�

It was a season of many positives, including a franchise-record-tying 46 wins and record 24 road wins. But being unable to hold leads entering the third period of Games 4 and 6 is what’s uppermost in most players’ minds.

“When you look back at the series that’s probably what cost us the series, giving up those leads. We definitely easily could have won that series. It was right there,� Richardson said.

With the Kings’ season over, he didn’t plan to watch much playoff hockey for the moment. “I really don’t care if it’s not us,� he said.

They’re still discovering what it takes to be the team that moves on, not the one that’s breaking up this week.

“It’s learning when you have a chance to finish teams off, do it,� said veteran winger Ryan Smyth, who said his decision to accept a trade to the Kings last summer was “the right choice� given the team’s performance and bright future.

“We did have a chance here in Game 4 going into the third. I think that was a big, pivotal point in the series. Give Vancouver credit. They played hard. But you’ve got to have instincts to finish off teams. We didn’t have that.�

How can they get it?

“It’s within that locker room,� he said. “As a team you’ve got to raise that level again and again. It’s got to be relentless. And believe in it. There were moments and times that we did believe and had some momentum-shifters but it didn’t happen.�

At some point, soon, they’ll appreciate the considerable progress they made this season—not only in making the playoffs for the first time in eight years but in displaying a tenacity that previous teams lacked. Their best players were their youngest players—Doughty, Anze Kopitar, Wayne Simmonds and Jack Johnson—and they can form a strong, stable core for years to come.

“I think the thing we showed is we could play against anybody,� center Michal Handzus said. “We had a great regular season, I thought, and against Vancouver we showed we could play. It was a tight series.

“We can take a lot of confidence from this year and take it into next year. It’s important to learn from these mistakes, why we lost, reflect on it and just used it next year.�

Team captain Dustin Brown said he will talk to defenseman Matt Greene about organizing the same kind of informal workouts they ran here last summer, when about a dozen players participated in different shifts. Players and coaches said those sessions strengthened the team’s bonds all season.

This was a cohesive team, but it won’t be the same next season. Forwards Alexander Frolov, Jeff Halpern, Fredrik Modin and Raitis Ivanans and defensemen Randy Jones and Sean O’Donnell are eligible for unrestricted free agency July 1, and it’s likely Halpern and Ivanans won’t return. O’Donnell has slowed but his experience is valuable.

Coach Terry Murray, asked if he’d want Frolov back if General Manager Dean Lombardi could get him at the right price, said he would “absolutely� want the underachieving winger back. But that might be a moot point if Frolov asks for $5 million a year, as has been rumored.

In any case, change is inevitable but the Kings have advanced beyond making stop-gap signings or trades.

“The important thing is our core group of guys, not only have they been together they’re going to continue to be together,� Brown said. “You look around the league, some of the better teams have that group of guys that have always been there X amount of years and they’ve kind of grown and been through it together.

“The core group of guys they’re trying to put in place is going to be back, and that hasn’t always been the case this time of year for the Kings.�

Being in the playoffs hasn’t always been the case for them lately and they cleared that hurdle. The expectations from outside and within will be higher from now on.

“They should be,� said defenseman Jack Johnson, who will play for Team USA in the World Championships starting May 7 in Germany.

“Just making the playoffs isn’t good enough. That shouldn’t be a goal for anyone. The goal is to win the whole thing. That’s why you play. Just because you made the playoffs one year doesn’t mean things are hunky-dory. Expectations should be building every year. Truthfully, expectations should be the Stanley Cup….

“You have to expect to make the playoffs. Half the league makes the playoffs. We should be in the playoffs.�

They were. And they know it will tough to advance past this point.

“Sometimes it’s easier to play under [the] radar but next year we’re not going to be under [the] radar. Everybody now knows we’ve got a good team,� Handzus said.

“We know next year there’s going to be a little bit more pressure on us but I think it’s welcome pressure and that feeling that you have a good team to go to the playoffs and do something special. It should be excitement in the season right from the training camp that we have a great team and we can do something special.�

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