-Darryl Sutter on playing 5-on-5 and not getting a lot of scoring chances:
“We drew penalties that allowed us to score goals 5-on-5, so you know I’m not too caught up in that. We scored enough goals to win every game.”
-Sutter on Dustin Brown’s physicality:
“The first goal he scored, isn’t that being physical? He comes out of the penalty and you cut… so that is being physical. When he’s driving the net, that’s the physical part of it.”
-Sutter on the Kings “letting it get away” in the third:
“We didn’t let it get away, we made mistakes below the goal line and they scored on a power play. We scored two out of three goals in a power play.”
-Dustin Brown on the Kings getting their first home win:
“We just want to establish that home mentality that we had last year. Obviously it wasn’t as clean as we wanted to, but we got the job done. I think it was just important to get a good feeling going into this road trip because we got long travel tomorrow. It’s important for us to get these two points, and now we have to focus on the next two.”
-Brown on the first goal setting the tone for the game:
“Get the other team back on their heels a little bit. Power plays were huge tonight. I don’t know if that last goal was a power-play goal, but it essentially was because the guy was maybe stepping out of the box. That is what we need from our power play, is to step up at big times.”
-Carter on if having a guy in front of the net is the key to 5-on-5 scoring:
“You are not going to score too many goals in this league unless you have a guy standing in front of the net. Goalies are too big, too good, too quick. It is something we have talked a lot about. You look at probably 90% of our goals this year, there is a guy standing right in front of him.”
-Carter on the Kings’ 5-on-5 play:
“There is always room to improve. I thought we took a step in the right direction tonight. That’s what we need to do.”
More Jeff Carter post-game quotes here.
Note to webmasters/reporters: When recapping news or interviews from this site please include a link to www.MayorsManor.com
About John Hoven
Nice to get the two points after letting the lead slip away. DB, JC, and MR were easily the best forwards for the Kings. JQ continues to be solid and is playing better than he did during the regular season last year.
Problems on defense all night. I’ve always been a WM fan even from the time he came up with the Devils and especially in Minnesota where he should have been named permanent captain. Last night was the worst game I’ve ever seen Willie play. He looked old and slow. Based on RR’s play this season and WM’s play last night along with Muzzin’s defensive struggles the Kings will not make the playoffs.The Kings must get better play from their D-men.
DD and Voynov are not playing especially well but in DD’S defense it appears he’s trying to do too much as he is not getting enough help from his D partners. Voynov needs to be paired with a a D-man who has some size and is executing in order for him to play his game. Martinez played well last night… A bit surprised Sutter didn’t talk much about the problems on defense last night.
I agree about Voynov. He seems to have disappeared through the first 4 games of the season and doesn’t seem to be as aggressive as last season. The PP looked really good last night with lots of movement. I love Kopi, but when he is out for the PP, he seems to slow things down and allows the opponents PK to catch up. DS should continue to use Richards as the quarterback for the PP since his aggressiveness seems to cause the opponents PK to break down and collapse more. It also seems that the Kings come out and have a really good 1st period, then have trouble dealing with their opponent’s adjustments in the 2nd period, then play their opponent even during the 3rd period. They definitely need to find more consistency and either dominate or play even for all 3 periods (aka, play the full 60 minutes).
Kopi is something of an enigma. He’s got great skill and tries to set his wingers up for good chances which maybe carries over to the PP’s where he doesn’t usually score himself. He might be guilty of over-passing in that situation. Kopi is not overly fast and seems to fare better against smaller centers where he can use his size and reach to advantage. He does often struggle against bigger centers like Thonton, Backes, and Hanzal. He has not returned to his Cup winning form where he was the Kings second best forward after DB. Maybe will never be the dominating center we all hoped to see him become.
Voynov’s value is most prevalent in the offensive zone where he’s becoming one of the NHL’s best. He moves the puck well out of his own zone and through the neutral zone but struggles against aggressive and bigger forwards when trapped in his own zone. He definitely needs considerable help from his D-partner when in his own zone.