Robinson Lauds Forechecking

In winning four of five games, the Kings have been one of the surprise teams of the exhibition season, and one reason has been their ability to control the puck.

“Overall, we’re forechecking much better,” Coach Larry Robinson said. “[The team] is starting to understand what [we want]. Last year, one of the reasons why we were getting so many shots against was that the other team had the puck most of the time. Now, we’re getting much more pressure [forechecking].”

Robinson credits part of the Kings’ early success to the team’s new aggressive philosophy, built on size and speed.

“With more speed and size, you can do things a lot different forechecking,” Robinson said. “Another thing I like is that we’ve been [scoring] goals on rebounds in front of the net. Guys stopping in front for deflections. That’s something we didn’t do well all of last year. . . . A reason for that is having a guy like Luc [Robitaille], he leads by example and is always in front of the net.”