February 14 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On the last two days of practice:
“[To be] perfectly clear and honest, March [has] just about zero practice. We have 17 games, I believe, in March. You’ve got very little practice, so you have to take advantage of these days. It doesn’t mean that it impacts tomorrow, but it’s got to impact the big picture. Certainly with some of these young guys – not some of them, most of them – it’s about practice.”

On the play in St. Louis where Martinez got hurt:
“It was just an innocent thing. It was like [the] second shift. It was nothing. It was just an easy play. He just got banged. He’s better. You know what? He’s had it before, and it gets better. We’ve had them. You’ve just got to do it every day and be careful. He won’t be very long.”

On who will start in goal versus Columbus:
“No answer. Know the program. I don’t say the day before, the day of or until, right? It’s the way I feel.”

On why he prefers to not announce a starter:
“I just don’t feel comfortable doing that. For lack of a better answer, St. Louis announced Halak was…playing the other night. That’s what we assumed, too. So did they. It doesn’t really serve much purpose publicly. It’s not like you have a rotation. Lots of things happen. In more of a roundabout way, we want to be a playoff team. We need a goalie to get hot, not get patted on the back.”

On how often he tells a goaltender that he’s starting ahead of time:
“Sometimes. Obviously, tomorrow morning they’ll know. But when we’re on the road, or depending on how late your travel is, generally we let them know.”

On goaltending competition:
“We rode a hot goalie last year, right? They didn’t the year before. We rode a hot goalie last year. You know what? We’re in the same thing again. [We] need one to get hot.”

On what he saw in Ellerby’s play from Detroit to St. Louis:
“The ability to move pucks. It was pretty consistent in both games. It’s the strength of his game, and it has to be really consistent. He’s a big, mobile guy, and he’s going to be on the puck a lot, so being able to make the good play is what we want him to do. That’d be number one.”

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