LOS ANGELES -- The youth movement that is the Los Angeles Kings season has skewed a little younger.
With the recent call-ups of goalie Jonathan Quick (age 22) and center Trevor Lewis (21), the Kings now have five players 22 or younger on the active roster -- and not just on the roster, but trying to become an integral part of it.
Quick, in particular, appears to be making inroads.
He posted his first NHL shutout on Tuesday in Columbus, made his third straight start Friday against Phoenix -- and played well enough in a 2-1 loss that coach Terry Murray indicated he'd get consecutive start No. 4 tonight in the conclusion of the back-to-back, home-and-home series with the Coyotes.
"He gave us a chance tonight," said Murray. "He's taking advantage of the opportunities he's been given, and we like what we see."
The opportunity was presented when Erik Ernsberg was sidelined by a groin injury (he skated with the team for the first time on Friday morning, but is still at least a few days away from playing). And even before Friday's game, Quick -- a third-round pick in the 2005 draft -- was making a good impression in a 6-4 loss at Detroit and the 3-0 win in Columbus.
"The Detroit game, being the first one, it's a pretty intense building to go into for a young guy," said Murray. "I thought he was very collected and composed. There was a play at the end of the game that I'd like to see him have it back -- the goal from the half-boards -- but overall, he was very good. ...
"He's very competitive. He's athletic. He's got skill, there's no doubt about that. I like his battle. I like his compete, a lot. He never gives up, he's on top of things, he's learning the NHL game here in the last couple games. He's really adjusted well to the NHL shooters."
The adjustment is ongoing, said Quick, who played three games with the Kings last year, going 1-2 with a 3.83 goals against and .855 saves percentage.
"The first day or two, it's a little different than the American League," said Quick, 6-5-2 with a 2.68 goals-against this year in Manchester. "But you practice with these guys, and you get used to it, and you get to know the guys a bit better, the more time you spend with them. Everyone's one the team been great and makes you feel welcome. ..
"The game's a little bit quicker and they shoot the puck a little bit harder, you know? So it's just about getting your timing. You get your timing down and you feel a bit better."
There was little about Friday's game, in which Quick stopped 24 of 26 shots, to suggest he was still moving in the right direction on that learning curve.
"You look at the two goals," said captain Dustin Brown. "One's a two-on-one back door, and one's a tip-in. He made some key saves, one in particular -- I think it was on (MIkkel) Boedker, with a pull-up shot in the third. If that's in the net, it's maybe game over right there.
"He made the saves. We just didn't come through on the other end."
Also new: Friday's game was not quite so positive for Lewis, who had vaulted from fourth-line duty in his debut at Buffalo to a spot on the first line with Anze Kopitar and Patrick O'Sullivan, and responded with a goal in Detroit and an assist in Columbus.
"He has fit on that line, I think, very comfortably, with Kopitar and O'Sullivan," said Murray at Friday's morning skate. "He's got nice speed and quickness, he's able to play the game at top speed. He handles the puck and can continue plays on that line. He sees the ice well, moves the puck.
"I think he's got a wonderful upside to his game. He's got some instincts there -- and that's why he's a first-round pick (17th overall in 2006). He has some nice instincts for the game.
"So we'll keep pushing him, and building on it, to see how that moves along."
Lewis was in Winnipeg with Manchester -- where he had eight goals and 19 points in 28 games -- when he received word of his promotion on Dec. 18.
"I got nervous," he said, "and just got out of there and called my parents right away. It's a great feeling."
It got better, of course, when he scored his first NHL goal in Detroit -- though it wasn't exactly an end-to-end rush: A rebound of his shot was knocked in by Detroit's Brian Rafalski.
"t was my first shift there in Detroit," Lewis said. "I was pretty nervous, but just got in there and puck kind of squirted out, so I just shot it. And I was lucky -- I think it hit their D's skate and went in.
"It wasn't how I pictured my first goal, but I'll take it."
Particularly in light of the location. Detroit, he said, "was my favorite team growing up. So it was pretty special."
Lewis, like Quick, is still adjusting to the NHL game -- the primary differences being "speed and everyone's so smart out there," he said, "so there's not many mistakes."
Friday's game -- his first as an NHLer with his parents on hand -- didn't go quite as well as the previous two. He started the night with Kopitar and O'Sullivan, but at the finish, when the Kings mounted their comeback, it was with Brown having moved onto that line. Lewis, who played a little over 12 minutes, saw the ice for just 2:41 in the final period.
One night, of course, is not going to undue what the Kings like about Lewis.
"This is a skating game today," said Murray. "... That's the way the rules have changed and it's brought more speed and quickness into the game, and he certainly has that skill in his repertoire. I'm looking forward to seeing how he moves as we go forward here.
Down the road: As if there wasn't enough young talent on hand, Kings fans will probably want to keep an eye on the World Junior Championships that began Friday in Ottawa. Along with center Oscar Moller -- who had six goals and 13 points in 30 games before being allowed to join the Swedish National Team -- the Kings have three draftees playing in the tournament which is a holiday highlight in Canada but remains barely a blip on the radar in the United States.
Defensemen Thomas Hickey and Colten Teubert, first-round picks the last two years, are playing for Team Canada, which opened the tournament with a 8-1 win over the Czech Republic on Friday. Defenseman Viatcheslav Voynov is playing for Russia, which beat Latvia 4-1 in its opener.
Hickey, the No. 4 pick overall in the 2007 draft, is playing junior hockey in Seattle, where he had six goals and 12 assists with a plus-13 rating in 26 games. Teubert, selected 13th overall this year, is playing for Regina, where he had eight goals and 14 assists, and was plus-14, in 33 games. Despite Canada's lopsided win, they each were held off the score sheet and were minus-1 against the Czechs.
Voynov, a second-round pick earlier this year, had four goals and eight assists, and was plus-4, in 24 games with the Kings' farm team in Manchester before joining the Russian team for the tournament. He scored Russia's first goal Friday.
Moller missed a penalty shot and was minus-one in Sweden's opener Friday, but his team beat Finland 3-1.
For those who have the channel on their cable system or satellite package, the tournament is being carried on The NHL Network. Canada, Russia and Sweden all return to action Sunday, as does the U.S. team, which beat Germany 8-2 in its opener. There are no Kings prospects on the U.S. roster, but there are two Californians -- defenseman Jonathon Blum (Rancho Santa Margarita), the team captain, and forward Mitch Wahl (Seal Beach).

Understandably, most of the people I talked to for Wednesday's feature on Newbury Park basketball coach Nori Parvin focused on Parvin the person, rather than the coach. Her ability to develop personal relationships with her players, and to focus on their overall development even at the expense of basketball, set her apart.
But Parvin the coach deserves some recognition as well -- mostly because she may be a bit underrated in that regard, despite those 500 career wins.
"I think you're right about that," says Dennis McKeown, a former assistant coach and longtime friend of Parvin (he was a senior at Hueneme High when she was a freshman). "You look at, especially, the last 10 or 12 years. They've been rolling and rolling along.
"They've done it with teams that have a superstar, and teams that you wouldn't think are especially talented. So she's been able to win in a lot of different situations."
And that, says Chuck Brown, the longtime Thousand Oaks High girls' basketball coach now at Grace Brethren, is "the difference between a lot of coaches that aren't successful" and the ones that are; the unsuccessful ones "keep doing the same thing whether or not they've got the players to do that thing. ...
"Some of her teams have been run-and-gun-type teams, when she's had the players to do that, and others have been those that slow it down and work for the good shot. I remember one group she had there, they would just run that offense and run it over and over and over until finally somebody got a layup. And that's tough for a defense to keep up with."
Newbury Park athletic coordinator George Hurley says Parvin "always wins with defense. But she doesn't have an offense that has been the hallmark of her success. She'll do whatever it takes to win. If she's got kids that won't shoot, she'll try to win 12-10. She is adjustable."
Parvin is unafraid to give her assistants a free hand.
"She's the boss and oversees the whole program," says Ron Gellenbeck, an assistant or lower-level coach in Newbury Park's program since 1988, "but we each have our own responsibilities as far as the practices are concerned, and also the game days."
Parvin's willingness to let her assistants coach is clear in the case of Alex Mallin, the former Newbury Park and Cal Luther player who joined her staff this year. Mallen says she puts together the practice plan virtually every day, while game strategy is discussed between all the coaches.
"She has 100 percent trust in her assistant coaches," says Mallen.

There's one more reason Parvin may not be as heralded for her coaching skills as her 500 wins would seem to dictate: It's not the sort of thing that matters to her.
"She doesn't have much ego," says Hurley. "So you ask her, 'How many league championships have you won?' 'Oh, I don't know. It's not that important.' "
Parvin is not likely to blow her own horn, but others are willing to do it for her.
"I think her record speaks for itself," says Newbury Park boys' basketball coach Steve Johnson, a former Newbury Park student who says Parvin has been "an absolute joy" to work with professionally over the last 15 years.
"All the rest of us maybe have to talk her up a little bit.
"Her longevity, her success -- it's pretty hard to argue with that."

Sorry ... due to work on a feature running tomorrow, I was unable to get out to the Kings this weekend or on Monday, and the schedule for the rest of the week precludes a delayed edition.

With both teams out of town next weekend, it may well be Dec. 30 before the next entry, but if I can get something sooner, I will.

LOS ANGELES -- This was the kind of game that shows the difference between a promising young team and one delivering on that promise.
Despite strong play for much of the game, the Kings found a way to lose 3-1 on Monday to an undistinguished and rather slow Toronto team. (If the Montreal Canadians have historically been known as the "Flying Frenchmen," these Maple Leafs should probably be known as the "Anchored Anglos.")
"It seemed like we found a way to lose," said goaltender Jason LaBarbera, "instead of a way to win."
That way to lose was on specialty teams: The Kings bombarded Toronto on a 4-on-3 power play late in the second period and failed to score, then gave up two power-play goals in 1:21 early in the second period that springboarded the Maple Leafs in front. Toronto added an empty-net goal at the end for the final score.
"Your power play can win you a game," said Kings coach Terry Murray. "Your penalty killing will lose you a game. We had an opportunity in the second to build on the 1-0 lead. They were good on their penalty kill; their goaltender was very good in that situation.
"When you get down to going into the third period and both teams are in it like that, it is a matter of a turnover or one play to the net that can turn the momentum to either way."
The young Kings are still learning lessons about what it takes to win, and the one delivered Monday, Murray said, was how small that margin is between success and failure.
"You make a mistake handling the puck and we're shorthanded," he said, referring to the penalty on Sean O'Donnell just 12 seconds into the third period that gave Toronto the man advantage. "Now we are killing a penalty, and we take a run at a guy, and now we're down two men."
Dustin Brown took the second penalty, for tripping at 1:59, and Toronto needed just 10 seconds to convert on the two-man advantage to tie the score. Before Brown's penalty expired, the Leafs had the lead.
"It's a penalty-kill situation first," said Murray. "You can't look to hunt people down in a penalty-kill situation. You've got to make sure you're doing the job to get back to five-on-five."
One more detail: The Kings did generate quite a bit of pressure late in a bid to tie the score, but didn't have the luxury of using their time out to give the attackers a breather or talk things over. That's because Murray had used his time out in the first period after the Kings took an icing call after some sustained pressure by the Leafs. Under a rule change this season, a team that takes an icing call can't change its personnel, so the already tired group of Kings had to stay out. Murray wanted to give them a breather right then, a strategy that is becoming more common under the new rule.
"It probably bought them a minute to recover," he said. "It's a zero-zero game and you've got to be careful. You expose some players to fatigue, and they make a change and have fresh players coming at you.
"Again, that's the margin of error that can be there. You've got to be careful and manage it the right way. ... There's no sense saving it until the end of the game. You might not have to use it."
Traveling men: The Maple Leafs' visit -- only the third to Los Angeles in the last 10 years -- provides a good reminder of the dramatic difference in the travel burden faced by Eastern and Western Conference teams.
The Maple Leafs' longest road trip of the season is a four-game sequence with games in Buffalo on Feb. 4 (after which they'll undoubtedly go home), Montreal on Feb. 7 (after which they'll probably go home), Florida on Feb. 10 and Tampa Bay on Feb. 12. That's four games in nine days -- and the players will probably be able to sleep in their own beds at least five nights during that stretch.
Even when the Leafs do travel, they rarely go too far. They opened the season with 15 games in the Eastern time zone, went on a three-game trip to Western Canada, went back to the East for five games, are on a three-game Western swing, then play their next 21 games in the East. After games Jan. 27 in Minnesota and Jan. 29 in Colorado, they get to stay in the Eastern time zone for the final 33 games of the season. Their total number of games outside their home time zone: eight.
The Kings, on the other hand, play 32 games outside of Pacific time. Their longest stretch of games without leaving the time zone was the seven-game homestand in late October and early November. And at the end of the season -- when they're paying the price for all the early home games by playing 24 of their final 35 on the road -- they have two five-game trips (one to Montreal, Ottawa, Washington, New Jersey, and the New York Islanders; one to Minnesota, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago and Columbus) and a six-game trip (Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas and Nashville). No sleeping at home during those trips.
No. 2 man: The Ducks' backup goaltender, Jonas Hiller, was No. 2 in another sense last week, named Second Star in the NHL's Three Stars of the week.
Hiller was 2-0 with a 0.50 goals against, .984 saves percentage and first NHL shutout, beating Chicago 1-0 on Nov. 28 and Carolina 4-1 on Sunday. He's now 6-1-1 this season with a 1.94 goals-against.
Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby (six goals, three assists in three games) was the First Star of the week. St. Louis goalie Chris Mason (2-0 with a
1.00 goals-against and .974 saves percentage) was the Third Star.
No notebook next week: I'll be away. Check back Dec. 16.