Following the Kings rare noon start for practice today, here’s what coach Darryl Sutter had to share…
- On the Colin Fraser hit and Jake Muzzin fight last night in San Jose: “Just a natural team thing, it’s no big deal. Fraz got drilled and Muzz was right there. I wouldn’t say he was going in to fight. You know that’s not, Muzzin’s not going in (for that). He’s a team guy, he’s gonna go in there and just…It’s not a big deal.”
- On the instigating with a visor rule: “I think it’s an old fashioned, archaic, antique rule. We continue to make all these rule changes when they get bored and have these committees, right? But 16 players on our team wear visors, and I’m going to assume that 16 players on every team wear visors. Yet we continue to bring visors up when somebody gets hurt, but there’s a rule in the book that…First off, would say the player actually started the altercation and you get an extra two minutes because he’s got a visor on? It’s pretty much like…Old fashion.”
- On if he supports making the nets larger or shrinking the size of goalie equipment: “No. I’ve been on those committees too and seen how those experiments…Those are just bored committees, right? So if you’re going to make the net bigger, are you going to take out four rows and make the ice bigger? And you’re going to make the goalie equipment smaller? So you got six million dollar…They’ve already protected the goalies all they can, right? In terms of the rules. Put lines on the ice, rules, and icings, and all these things to protect goalies. Which is what general managers wanted. So to protect the goalie…We already made his equipment as small as you can get. You know what? The President’s body guards look like they have shirts and ties on and they have bulletproof vests on, and they’re this big (indicating about three inches with his fingers). Right? So, I don’t think you have to make goalie equipment any…We already did it. These guys that are talking about these rules, they’re the guys that wanted players to have equipment that were like sleeping bags. Right? Just think how not that long ago with goalies equipment, think of guys like Giguere and guys like that. There used to be great big equipment. So, you can’t make it any smaller.
And you know, the equipment they’re using is so light. Somebody must have been bored talking about that (on the radio this morning). …Quite honestly, the way our goalie equipment standards are now are really good because it’s based on size. There are restrictions based on your size and equipment size. I think those are good rules. But changing the net size? I’ve seen all those things. And then the next thing they want is - somebody will bring up square posts. They tried that one too, right? Because they thought the square posts or triangle posts would deflect pucks into the net instead of the round going off. I’ve seen all that stuff.”
- On if he found any committee meetings to be productive: “Yeah, really good. But remember what most of those committee meetings are about…I could send in to stop and sing the national anthem (suggestion). Or sing God Bless America seven minutes into the third period, right? So everybody stop and do it. It sounds like a good idea, and then it would have to go to committee, right? So if you bring it up, it’s got to go to a committee. Why in Canada, ten minutes into the third period, why don’t we sing the Good Ol’ Hockey song. Everybody get up and sing, you know. Sounds like a good idea, right? It’s an awesome song.”
- On using a bigger ice surface: “Bigger ice surface, less offense, more defense, more neutral zone play. Doesn’t help anything. Go to Europe and watch. And a lot of these coaches have brought that over. They went over and come back here and started playing the…Vancouver played it for a while. They called it “The Torpedo”, or 1-3-1. Just becomes a (neutral ice game) just to bounce the puck back and forth. Bigger ice doesn’t open it up at all. You actually become more zone-prevent.”
- On if Alec Martinez has been playing ‘timid’: “He’s coming off an injury, so I wouldn’t call it timid…Marty has to play against 230-240 pound guys. So he has to be quick in, quick out. I don’t call that timid. I just think you gotta be quick.”
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I can’t stop laughing at Sutter’s comments. I’m not sure if he could be any more awesome than he is. He’s totally dead serious in half his sentence before it turns in sarcasm and deadpan (like singing the Good Ol’ Hockey song 7 minutes into the 3rd). Classic comments from the coach
Sutter is wrong. You can’t judge whether bigger ice would help offense in the NHL by looking at Europe. The players over there aren’t as good. The whole reason for bigger ice in the NHL is that NHL players are too fast and too big so they can clog up space too effectively, leaving no room for skill to flourish on offense, and thus the need for more space on the ice.
Also who said you need to make it as big as Europe? What about something in between? The NHL ice is obviously too small, making the game too defensive with no room to skate through the neutral zone resulting in dump and chase. So you need more room. But Sutter says in Europe there is too much space, making the game too defensive because teams just sit back.
So? What if he’s right? He’s mistaken in believing Europe proves this, but what if he’s right anyway? What if too small equals too defensive, but too big also equals too defensive? Then try something in between! Easy!
Jeez, the brains on these guys.