Kings’ coach Darry Sutter had some pointed words for forward Simon Gagne following the team’s morning skate earlier today. Meanwhile, the former two-time 40-goal scorer shared his own perspective on things.
“It’s not easy,” said Gagne, when talking about being a fourth line player right now and fighting for minutes. “But, at the same time I understand the process of what’s going on here. I was not here (much) of last year, not a big part of the season – especially in the Stanley Cup playoffs. I was just in the last couple of games. So, I understand Darryl wants to keep the lines as they were last year and stuff like that – same lines and same power plays too. I have to be patient on that and the only thing I can do is go out there an play hard. And using my minutes they give me to get back in and prove what I can do again. So, it’s not an easy situation. But, at the same time, I just want to play and go out there and do my best.”
Regarding any hatred for the Canucks he may bring into the game, there just isn’t much there right now.
“It’s a little different in my case,” he explained. “I think it’s a little different if you play in the West. I played in the East most of my time, and was maybe facing that team once a year. So, it’s hard to create that level of hating a team. For this team, almost all of our guys have been in the West and played the Canucks (many times). In my case, with last year being my first year here, you start learning the type of game (the Canucks) want to play and it’s the type of game that will get on your nerves a little bit. I’m sure the more and more I play against them, my level will get closer to what Dewey’s talking about.”
The comments from Drew Doughty that he referenced can be found here.
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[…] To read Gagne’s pre-game comments and thoughts from Sutter about his recent play, click here. […]