Drew Doughty has a bruised thigh, but Kings should have bruised feelings

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Kings defenseman Drew Doughty didn’t skate Tuesday because of the thigh bruise he sustained during the team’s 3-1 loss to Tampa Bay Monday night. A club spokesman said Doughty’s status is day to day. The Kings’ next game is Thursday against Detroit at Staples Center.

Doughty was injured during the second period after Tampa Bay’s Evgeny Artyukhin appeared to stick out his knee and catch Doughty above the right knee. Doughty’s defense partner, Sean O’Donnell, tried to fight Artyukhin but Artyuhkin wouldn’t go at it, leaving O’Donnell with a cross-checking penalty.

After that, the Kings showed little emotion -- and that’s unforgiveable.

We’re not advocating head-hunting or bloody stick fights. We’re talking caring enough about the Kings’ performance and progress as a team to play hard every shift of every game. And that’s not happening.

They should have been angry after losing Doughty, their top defenseman and the franchise cornerstone. They should have made that a rallying point. They didn’t.

In the first game of the second half of their season, they didn’t seem to care enough about their own situation -- on the verge of losing sight of the top eight teams in the West -- to do anything but meekly absorb a defeat against a team that’s in no danger of seeing the Stanley Cup again unless it visits the Hockey Hall of Fame.

There are no bad guys in the Kings’ locker room, and no one is poisoning the atmosphere as Sean Avery did during his mercifully brief stay. But there have been too many games when the Kings let their opponents off too easily, without much of a fight in the emotional

sense, if not the pugilistic sense, and that can only mean that something is wrong with the mix of personalities.

The right emotional tone has to be created by the players, not the coach.

Fans sometimes criticize Terry Murray for not being emotional behind the bench, but his demeanor is irrelevant. Marc Crawford thought screaming was the answer to every problem. Andy Murray was so tightly wound up that he lost perspective.

Terry Murray has implemented an effective defensive system that has dramatically reduced the team’s shots-against totals. Assistant coach Mark Hardy has come up with ways to improve the penalty killing. Those are solid tools that have helped keep the Kings within plausible reach of the playoffs longer than anyone expected this season.

The Kings have some pieces that someday might be part of a good team, and that’s the problem: they have lots of fragments that don’t make a whole right now.

A lack of talent is no excuse for a lack of caring and for timidly accepting adversity. When that attitude prevails, the season is over. It may already be over for the Kings, who seem content to just tack another year onto that rebuilding process and expect fans to believe in a successful future that may never come to pass.

-- Helene Elliott

Photo (top): Drew Doughty. Credit: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images

Photo (bottom): Sean O’Donnell. Credit: Kirby Lee / Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE