(*Updated to fix Atlanta nickname from Flames to Thrashers, thanks to an alert reader. I guess my age is showing.)

It's one of those glass-half-empty or half-full kind of questions: If a team is succeeding when it pulls the goalie for an extra attacker at the end of the game, is it a good thing?
Obviously, it's never bad to score. But having to score late to tie the game is not exactly an ideal situation.
But it's one the Kings had faced in their last two home games, and they did succeed twice. Dustin Brown tipped in a shot with 26 seconds left last Saturday for a 2-2 tie in a game Edmonton eventually won in a shootout, and on Monday, Anze Kopitar scored with five seconds left to create a 6-6 tie with Atlanta; the Thrashers eventually won that one in a shootout, too.
As far as coach Terry Murray is concerned, there's no question the extra-attacker success is a positive.
"It's good news," he said. "That happens a lot in the league. You have to execute and you want to get results, especially on the power play. That's a requirement if you're going to be a team that keeps moving forward I like it."
Kopitar noted both goals came with the Kings also on a power play, so had a two-man advantage that's significant -- "It doesn't matter if it's five-on-three or six-on-four" -- but was a little more qualified in his enthusiasm for the situation.
"It's been working for us, but we don't want to be in that kind of position any more.
"We don't want to be in that kind of position, but if it happens, it happens. I think we were fortunate to get a point out of each game. ...
Points are huge at this time of the year. Of course you want to get two. When you get one, it's not good, but at least you get something out of it."
Whether six-on-five or six-on-four, it's not a situation a team specifically practices, but it's not totally unfamiliar, either.
"It's a power-play look," said Murray. "So you're practicing your power play. Your six-on-four look is not something you practice, but you have a designated area for that player to go to. It ends up with a five-on-four attitude with that kind of rover that's available to either side of the ice."
As for who's going to get sent over the boards when the goalie reaches the bench, "It's going to be one of your top guys," said Murray. "You're looking at your top-six forwards, your more skilled players. You're going to get them out there. You've got some guys that are heavy guys at the net, and then with that look with Kopey the other night, as a rover, you usually want a pretty skilled puck-possession guy who can see the ice and make plays."
The Kings have now scored after pulling the goalie three times in 18 attempts, while allowing seen empty-net goals. Opponents have succeeded three times in 22 attempts, while allowing nine empty-net goals.
Out of the blocks: The other constant in those two games -- and others of late -- is that the Kings have been getting behind early. They trailed 3-0 to Atlanta in the first eight minutes, and were down 2-0 to Edmonton in the first 14 minutes.
"We've come flat and we'll be on our heels," said Kopitar. "All the games we're playing, the first period is not a good one; we fall behind and then we chase the game."
Murray said the problem was one he would be discussing.
"You make it a focal point in your meetings to have good starts and do the right things," he said. "But you go back over the five road games (when the Kings went 4-1) -- we talk about our starts, we talk about setting up and establishing a forecheck and making sure we're doing the right thing with the puck through the middle of the ice.
"So it's not a big change. You might repeat it a few more times."
Penalties, he noted, have also played into those starts. The goal that gave Edmonton a 2-0 lead came on the power play, and Atlanta had two goals with the man advantage in its 3-0 start.
"We talked about that specifically," said Murray. "Those are hard -- when they come early in the game, or you get a power play early in the game like against Calgary, you're not ready for it. So that's a focal point.
"You have to take advantage of those situations -- or at least, if you get a power play, establish some offensive zone time, get that confidence moving it around and get a couple of chances. ... It carries over to your five-on-five."

There was a lot more to the Project 30 Task Force report -- a study recommending major reforms in the U.S. track culture -- than I could cover in my column on Deena Kastor's involvement in the task force
Before reading more of Deena's comments, you might want to learn more about the report.
A fairly detailed summary of the report is available here, at the USA Track and Field web site. There's a link at end of that page to a pdf file the full 69-page report, or you can get it here. It's not a quick read, and some of it is probably only of interest if you're a world-class athlete or a member of USATF, but it does provide more insight into and support of the task force's findings and conclusions.

If you're interested in seeing a few of the news reports on report's release, here are stories from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and from the Indianapolis Star by my friend David Woods, who has a very strong background in track and field.

With all that as prelude, then, here are some of Deena's other comments during a phone conversation from her home in Mammoth Lakes:

On how she became involved with Project 30 (named for the goal of 30 medals at the London Games):
"Aretha Hill Thurmond" -- a three-time Olympian in the discus -- "and I were added on a little late, because they realized they didn't have athlete representation. They had coaches and scientists and USOC members and USA Track and Field members on the panel. Really, the knowledge we had in front of us was unbelievable as far as statistics and past performances. I had a binder that was I don't know how many hundreds of pages long of past results from Olympic Games to world championships to individual performances and gold medalists and how things worked and didn't work -- the plans people had that worked and the ones that didn't follow through as well as planned. So it was really amazing to have that knowledge in front of me in the first place.
"And then to sit around the table and collectively make recommendations to Doug Logan, our new CEO of USA Track and Field, to how we're going to get 30 medals in the London Olympics was really exhiliarating, and everybody stuck on task and everybody was really passionate about how to make choices for the athletes to succeed four years down the road.
So it was a thrill to be a part of it. I learned a lot as well as gave a lot of my own personal information, as well as interviewing athletes -- each one chose to be anonymous, but interviewing athletes over the phone or face to face on their thoughts in the direction that they would need for success. And I brought their thoughts to the table."

On the task force's recommendation to eliminate the National Relay Program, an expensive -- and not particularly successful, based on recent results -- effort to prepare Olympic athletes for the 4x100 and 4x400 relays:
"From an athlete standpoint, I guess I was surprised that the relay plan, people thought it was so dysfunctional. Because I thought it was dysfunctional from the start, but I'm a distance runner, so I just chalked it up to me not understanding why we need to spend almost $100,000 on each men's and women's relay team to fulfill getting a baton around the track. It didn't seem like these athletes didn't need to be invested in that much.
"But I learned that a lot of people had a problem with it. So that was one thing that surprised me. I just thought I was naïve to the sport to think we needed that program."

To me, one of the more startling statements in the report was that "too few American athletes enter an Olympic Games with a goal of winning or even medaling," and I mentioned that to Deena.
"Right," she said. "And we looked a lot at performances at the Olympic Trials -- pre-Olympic Trials, Olympic Trials, competition in between the Olympic Trials and the Olympic Games, and people weren't having their best performances in the Olympic Games. So part of our intentions were to figure out how to do that.
"So we looked at the people who did have their best performances in the Olympic Games -- not just in Beijing, but in Athens and Australia and Atlanta; I mean, we looked back years and years to get data for this, to figure out what was that right combination of running and racing and trials preparation.
"We saw that in our recommendation of trimming down the length of the Olympic Trials, that most of our success comes in the World Championships, when our trials aren't as long. So that was one thing that alluded to maybe burning some athletes out, both on a monetary basis and an emotional and physical basis. So cutting that out seemed to help the athletes in many different ways, cutting the length of the trials.
"So there were so many details that we worked out. Some things didn't need to be changed at all because they worked well, and other things needed some severe rearranging and rescheduling."

She's aware that the people of Eugene, who will host the Trials in 2012 after having hosted them in 2008, have not reacted well to the idea of shortening the length of the trials. It was, after all, an economic boon to the city.
"We took that into consideration for only a moment," she said, "because our greatest concern was what's best for the athletes.
But when we looked at it very briefly, we thought, wow, it's worth tightening up the (trials). And we're cutting out maybe some of the rounds of the 100 and 200 by tightening the standards and not maybe having a two-day break between, we can really tighten up the package of our media exposure. So looking at it from a television standpoint, that it's going to be fast and fun and the tempo of watching these games is going to be exciting and entertaining rather than having these lulls and dead periods in between events, that there's going to be something going on, on the track or on the field, at all times, is pretty exciting to watch.
So I think it's going to end up helping a lot more than it's going to hinder people being away for a few extra days.
"I can see their concern with not having beds for as long, or not having hotels being filled for those extra five days or however many days they end up cutting it, if Doug Logan even decides to do that.
"So I can see Eugene's concern in that respect, but I think altogether, it's going to be a much tighter, more exciting package for everybody."

Officially, she noted, the task force has completed its job, but it will be given the chance to monitor what happens to its recommendations.
"We put so many hours of time into this. Our recommendations are complete; that's sealed and final, but we are going to meet a couple of times each year from now until London. Doug Logan, our CEO, just wants to make sure we're keeping him accountable for this. He hired us to come up with this, and he wants us to make sure that he's staying on task and in the right direction and moving at a good pace. So he asked us to meet for the next four years, just to make sure that things are progressing."

Members of the Ducks wake up this morning with their team holding down fifth place in the battle for one of the eight Western Conference berths in the Stanley Cup playoffs -- a position that is a lot more tenuous than it sounds.
Wednesday's 3-2 overtime win against Calgary came in the Ducks' 57th game of the season -- more than any other team in the conference, and anywhere from two to five games more than the teams behind them in the playoff race.
The Kings, for example, have played five fewer games, meaning they have the potential to make up 10 points -- and at the moment, even though the Kings are in 12th in the West, seven spots behind Anaheim, they trail the Ducks by just six points.
Which is why the three-game homestand that began Wednesday night is hugely critical to Anaheim's playoff prospects, as coach Randy Carlyle noted.
"The points are precious," said Carlyle. "Put an exclamation point on them. The games that we've played -- I guess we're looking at three and four more games than some other teams -- obviously, when you have home games, you're trying to take advantage of your home ice. And we haven't done a good enough job of that this year."
Even with Wednesday's win, the Ducks are just 15-11-3 at home -- 10th in the conference and one point better than the Kings (13-11-6 entering tonight's game with the Flames.)
The games-in-hand situation is such that, if the teams behind Anaheim earned the maximum number of points with those games they have yet to play, Anaheim could fall as far as 12th.
Of course, the math, and more importantly the schedule, doesn't really work that way.
"All those teams that have those games (in hand), they're going to have to play one another," noted Carlyle. That makes it impossible for all of them to get two points every time they're making up a game, but it doesn't mean all of them can't gain ground.
"But with three-point games, there's usually a lot of teams that gain points in games, be it shootouts and overtimes," he said. "And that's why when we're in the situation we're in, we need to win our home games, and we need to win a lot of hockey games against the teams that are around us. And the same goes for all the other teams."
It's why the Ducks knew that extra point they earned against Calgary -- the one they claimed when Scott Niedermayer scored in the first minute of overtime -- was hugely significant.
"They're all big for us, where we are right now," said Niedermayer, who had two goals Wednesday. "We need every point we can get.
"You guys see the standings. We see the standings."
Still, whatever happens in the two games remaining in this homestand -- Sunday against Atlanta and Wednesday against the Kings -- the Ducks will have plenty of chances to cement their current position, or squander it.
There are eight teams trailing the Ducks by eight points or less in the standings, and 15 of the team's 25 remaining games will be against those clubs: three each with Dallas and Phoenix, two with Vancouver, Edmonton and Nashville, and one each with Minnesota, Columbus and the Kings.
From the L.A. perspective, the Kings' 30 remaining games include 16 against the others in that knot of teams battling for the final four playoff spots: three each with Phoenix and Vancouver, two with Edmonton, Minnesota, Dallas and Nashville, and single games with Anaheim and Columbus.
Odd way to start (and finish): The brief overtime -- Niedermayer scored just 55 seconds in -- was unusual because the teams were playing three-on-three.
"Doesn't happen too often," said Niedermayer. "Obviously, there's a lot of room to skate and I tried to take advantage of that. Got a little lucky, obviously, on that goal, but you put it on net, you never know."
Niedermayer broke in with Todd Marchant on the scoring play, flipping the puck toward the net and past Calgary netminder Miikka Kiprusoff, who had been spectacular -- with a little help.
"I was just trying to get it on net," said Niedermayer. "It got deflected, I think."
It's not, as Carlyle noted, a situation you really practice. While there are sometimes three-on-three drills, they're more about conditioning or puck possession or just breaking up the routine, rather than actually working on the situation.
"Usually when you play three-on-three practice," said Carlyle, "it's usually east and west" -- across the width of the ice -- "and you pick teams -- Canadians against Americans ... or old versus young. It's not really any format that you go with.
"We just were fortunate enough that Scotty Niedermayer made a big-time play with Todd Marchant and we got a bounce off of (Dion) Phaneuf's stick."
The overtime was three-on-three, rather than the usual four-on-four, because Anaheim's Chris Kunitz and Calgary's Cory Sarich picked up coincidental roughing minors at the end of regulation.
"It was a little different," said Chris Pronger, who started the overtime for the Ducks with Ryan Getzlaf and Steve Montador. "It's been a while since I've been in three-on-three hockey.
"But it's pretty fun. It's exciting for the fans, and you know somebody's going to be getting some chances somewhere."