Postgame comments from Drew Doughty, following the Kings 5-3 loss in Minnesota on Thursday night…
On losing Sean Walker and Matt Roy, and the feelings on the bench while the injuries happened
Well, obviously scared for both of them. It was just scary. The hit from behind, it’s a dangerous play. You could get very, very badly injured on that. Then, taking a puck to the face and automatically bleeding like crazy like that? The rest of the third period was kind of scary, you just keep thinking about that in your head. They’re two really good players, two of our biggest defenseman on our team, so it sucks to lose them. We lost [Andreas Athanasiou] too, that sucks, that’s three key players.
On a positive from this road trip
I don’t know. We beat St. Louis, who I think is probably one of the best teams in our division, so that’s a good thing. I didn’t really like either of our games against Minnesota too much. The positives you can take is that we beat St. Louis, I guess.
On the difficulties of refocusing attention after two scary injuries
I don’t think it was hard for us to refocus our attention, just turn to we got to win the game for those two guys that got injured. It wasn’t harder to focus, it just felt weird. It’s like if you see a fight in real life on the street or something, you see someone get beat up, it’s kind of the same feeling. There’s just a weird feeling. I don’t think that we struggled to refocus though.
On losing both other right-handed defensemen, and if he was prepared to play as much as needed after they went down
Yeah. I tell him that even we have 60 minutes. I’m ready to do whatever I need to do.
On the play of Kale Clague and Mikey Anderson
We have a young D-corps, we need those guys to step up. They’re in the NHL for a reason, they’re very good players. I love playing with Mikey. [Kale Clague] with [Matt Roy], they look good together. We’re happy that they’re blossoming into NHLers and we’re gonna need them for the future.
On why he and Mikey Anderson have clicked very well initially
He’s a great talker. Talking as a partnership is one of the most important things you can have. He talks to me, I talk to him, so we’re very good at reading off each other. He’s very good at making little plays to escape the zone, he’s gonna find me in the offensive zone. He’s just a good solid player and he’s always gonna back me up there too, so I can get up in the rush. It’s clicked very well so far.
On if there is a rivalry brewing with the Wild after another chippy game
There’s gonna be lots of bad blood this season because we’re playing teams so much. In the past, I don’t think there’s a ton of bad blood with Minnesota but yeah, I guess maybe tonight some of that started.
On how he feels he is playing to start the season
I thought tonight I dominated the game, thought I was really, really, really good tonight. I don’t think I can play much better than that. As for the whole season, first one or two games wasn’t my best, but after that, I think I played very good hockey. I’m doing it in all phases of the game: PK, PP, and five-on-five. I am playing with a lot of emotion, I’m trying to lead the team to the best I can both on and off the ice. I’m very happy with how I played.
More postgame comments linked below.
RELATED CONTENT:
Note to webmasters/reporters: When recapping news or interviews from this site please remember to include a link to www.MayorsManor.com
Lead photo via Getty Images / LA Kings
