Quotes from both locker rooms following the Kings 1-0 win over the Vancouver Canucks…
Darryl Sutter on tonight’s game:
“Obviously their mindset was to come out and do what they did earlier in the game and do what they did. We’ve played these guys four times and both teams are fighting for the same spot, which right now is somewhere between third in the division and a wild card spot, and that’s a fact, that’s what teams are going to fight for.”
Sutter on the upcoming road trip:
“Like tonight, we play teams that we’ve just finished playing, that’s just kind of how the schedule’s been. St. Louis beat us 5-0 so we need to get the touchdown early on in the next game. It’s still a few days away so I’m not even thinking about the away games.”
Sutter on Matt Greene:
“I literally just saw him a minute ago, he got in a fight and didn’t come back. I saw the same thing you guys did, that was the last time I saw him.”
Jonathan Quick on the playoff feel of tonight’s game:
“Any time in this division or conference for that matter after looking at the standings you could win five straight and not jump any spots. So it’s tough. You’ve got to fight for every win. If you’re losing then you’re dropping. If you’re winning you’re just staying the same it seems like so you’ve got to keep going every time you’re out there.”
Quick on the game’s physicality:
“Yeah it’s usually like that when you play these guys. They’re a tough team and we’ve developed a bit of a rivalry over the past few years after playing them in the playoffs a few times. So that’s what you expect when they come in here and when we go out there.”
Dustin Brown on feeling targeted:
“I mean it’s no different than any other game. Tonight was because they were upset about what happened with Luongo ,but I’ve been in that situation before.”
John Tortorella on tonight’s game:
“I thought we played well. We don’t capitalize on a couple offensive chances, we make a mistake early in the third, and they score. There were a lot of things that I thought we stepped out of, into a different level. Which is really important as you go into the second half of the year.”
Tortorella on playing almost the entire first period short-handed:
“It is what it is. We did our job.”
Tortorella on the players making the right kind of statement:
“I thought we did a really good job as far as deciding that that ice is ours also. It’s something that’s been minus in our game a little bit here. That was a big part of our game tonight. We get squat for points, but I think we crossed a couple of bridges in what needs to be done.”
Henrik Sedin on his team’s play:
“We played a great game. If you look at the way we were battling, hitting, and getting into the forecheck, everything you need to do to win games, we were right there.”
Sedin on losing after a good game:
“It’s an 82-game season. You have to look at the way you play and you are not going to end up winning every game you play well and you are going to win some that you do not deserve to win so you have to somehow look at the effort we got tonight and the penalty kill and the way we stood up for each other so that says a lot about our team.”
Ryan Kesler on the penalty kills:
“I thought Tom [Sestito] did a great job of sticking up for his teammates, we’re going to kill penalties like that. He did his job and we came on and we killed it and that was big early on.”
Kesler on making a statement:
“I thought that is a big statement by our team. I think, in the past, that team tries to bully you and instill physical play and I thought we out-hit them, out battled them, I thought we were good all game and I think we played the right way tonight.”
The bottom line is the Kings win. This is a New Jersey Devil kind of win, not pretty but effective. DL has patterned his team after Lou L. and the Devils so this is what Kings fans should come to expect now and in the future.
Sutter is not a great coach. There are better coaches like Babcock and Tippet but he’s better than most and DL is a good but not great GM. DL has locked up JQ, DD, AK, JC, MR, VV, and DB for awhile so the Kings will be competitive in the foreseeable future. They won’t be exciting, but they should be good. It’s Sutter’s nature (like most coaches) to have his favorites, so it will tough to integrate the organization’s young talent into the big club and as a result some of the current talent won’t develop and will wither on the vine by trying to break into a line-up with established players of more limited talents. DS likes Muzzin who has no hockey sense so players like Martinez will suffer. Pearson and Toffoli should be getting more playing time but aren’t likely to under DS. He’ll keep trotting out players like JS and TL who should be fourth liners playing limited minutes.
Sutter trashed the Flames when G.M. so the best hope for the Kings is that DL will get rid of the marginal players and force DS to play more talented ones. Not likely to happen but hopefully that will be the case. As I stated earlier, DS is a good coach, just too often chooses the wrong players to dress and plays them too many minutes. He also has trouble with line combos and D-pairings… I am glad the Kings are a better team now than so many of those teams from previous decades!!