While most of the Kings were on the ice for an optional practice on Friday, coach Darryl Sutter met with the media and shared the following thoughts…
– On what the Kings still need to improve on:
“Individual things. When you break things down you’re always trying to improve. Putting different guys in the line-up, guys have to adjust to that a little better. There’s always a familiarity by position or sides you’re playing on defense. It’s game by game things, like faceoffs – there’s a lot of individual situations both teams will want to improve on.”
– On the play of San Jose:
“I think they played a desperate game last night. They played really well. We were able to manage our way through it. We knew they were going to try to come out and try and establish a forecheck. They did that on the first shift and they did that. They really tried to play a physical game, that allowed them to draw a couple penalties in the first periods and we were able to get through that. I don’t think that either team is going to surprise each other in how they’re going to play.”
– On how Anze Kopitar is doing:
“Well he finally got some stitches in his lip. There goes the modeling career.”
– On if he was surprised about Kopitar returning to the game:
“Hockey players, what difference does it make if it’s Anze Kopitar? Hockey players are different than other athletes.You get hit in the face and they get cut and you go in and you get sewed up and you come back out and play. Very seldom in 30-something years have I seen a player that doesn’t do that…you spit your teeth in your hands and say ‘Put me in coach.’”
– On the mood on the bench from being down in the game:
“We’ve had that experience this playoff already. We were down 2-0 in the last series. We were out of the series. We were down 2-0 early in Game 3 or 4, and we were out of the game. That’s what playoffs are about. I said last night, it’s very frustrating answering these questions because our playoffs are a four-out-of-seven series, which means generally when you break it down, every series goes six games which means somebody wins four and if you do your math, somebody loses two. You don’t win every period, you don’t win every shift and you don’t win every game.”
– On Sharks coach Todd McLellan saying they should’ve won the game because they scored three goals on Jonathan Quick:
“If you score three goals in the playoffs, you should win.”
– On if other teams have figured out Jonathan Quick:
“Well, last series everybody said they figured him out.”
– On Joe Thornton being a handful:
“Well he’s a handful by himself because hes a big guy and when he’s on the puck he’s going to compete to make plays and that’s the strength of his game and last night he was on and a big part of his game last night was the face off. He’s a dominant guy on the face off.”
– On if he thinks HP Pavilion is a building that creates home-ice advantage:
“It’s one of the only buildings that’s really tough.That’s still the biggest difference in the home-road (discussion), why everyone makes a big deal. Most of the buildings are generic, just different colors. But that’s one of the old ones. San Jose is one of the smaller buildings. You go to big buildings and they’re so not hockey buildings.”
– On his emotions the last couple minutes of the game:
“I was just trying to get guys on the ice, knowing that it was 5-on-4 then 5-on-3 then 5-on-4. You got to get the right guys, fresh guys out there, that’s most important.”
– On home ice not being considered an advantage considering all of the Kings’ road wins last playoffs:
“I think once you past the first game, if someone comes in and gets Game 1 back, then it resets.”
– On Tanner Pearson and Linden Vey skating with the big club rather than the Black Aces:
“Jarrett Stoll and Kyle Clifford aren’t skating with either one of them. Well, Cliffy is skating with the other guys but obviously can’t have contact so I’d rather have close to a simulated team.”
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