There’s been little rest for the LA Kings. After finishing off the Anaheim Ducks in a Game 7 on Friday night, they were back at the team’s training facility for practice on Saturday, before boarding their flight to Chicago. Below are comments from defenseman Drew Doughty upon arriving in the Windy City…
Q. You have had a three-game losing streak in each series, but managed to win. How much does experience count?
DREW DOUGHTY: I think we have a good group of guys. We have a lot of leadership. Winning that Cup a couple years ago helped us. We had a lot of young guys, guys that hadn’t been in the playoffs. I think we used that experience and knowledge of that type of game to come back in situations. We don’t want to be losing three games in a row. Sometimes things happen. We found a way and we’re happy.
Q. You’ve spoken freely about your dislike of certain teams. Is Chicago rising up into that spectrum?
DOUGHTY: Yeah, they’re a tough team to play against. They’re so good. They have so many good players. They have weapons at every single position. So, yeah, it’s going to be a battle out there again. We all know they beat us pretty good last year, beat us pretty handily. We have to learn what we did wrong and fix those things.
Q. Do you relish going up against guys like Toews and Kane, game-breakers?
DOUGHTY: Yeah, of course. Playing those guys is tough. Every team has those tough guys that you relish going up and playing against. Some guys are tougher than others. These two in particular are going to be really tough for our ‘D’. Our forwards, as well. I look forward to playing against Toews and Kane and keeping them off the score sheet to the best of my ability. It’s going to be a battle, but I’m looking forward to it.
Q. Going into this series, do you approach it the way you did against Anaheim as a team?
DOUGHTY: Yeah, we have to. We know how much firepower Chicago has. We’ll go five games when we play other teams and we don’t allow 10 grade A scoring opportunities. We played Chicago and they hit 10 in one game. They play so fast, it’s going back the other way they create chances. We know they can score goals. Our game isn’t to beat teams 5-4, stuff like that. We just want to keep them off the score sheet, give Quickie the least amount of work as possible, win games 1-0, 2-0. That’s the way we approach it.
Q. Having two seven-game series, do you think it helps you carry the momentum into Game 1 tomorrow afternoon?
DOUGHTY: I don’t know how much momentum carries over from series to series. We’re definitely on a high right now. We can carry that through. We have to forget about the last series. We’re definitely feeling confident in ourselves. We feel good as a team. We feel good as individuals. We definitely have to carry that over. It’s going to be tough to steal one in their arena here. It’s a tough arena to play in. They’re so good at home. We need to try to win this first game. It’s very important.
Q. What is it about the Blackhawks that you struggle with? What do you need to do differently?
DOUGHTY: I think we need to keep possession of the puck. The times we get in trouble is when we make a turnover, they’ll either draw a penalty — and their power play is lethal. They’ll score goals like they scored in the series last year. We just want to keep possession of that puck. We want to get in and fore check, rough it up in the corners. We want to be a physical team. I think that’s one thing, we can be more physical than them, no doubt about that. We have to, yeah, just keep the puck, make the right plays at the right times, not have as many turnovers.
Quotes from Kings coach Darryl Sutter can be found here.
Also, quotes from Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar can be found here.
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