February 15 postgame quotes: Darryl Sutter

On his assessment of the young defensemen:
“I thought they were solid. You know what? It’s not about singling guys out. There were no big mistakes, right? So you don’t have to single guys out…If you limit them to only that many shots, that means that as a group – not just as a defense – that we played well enough to win.”

On whether he expected Voynov to be logging the heavy minutes that he currently is:
“We have to play them. It’s got nothing to do with ‘expecting’ what the start of the season was. We lost Mitchell and Greene and Martinez, three guys that were…top-six guys. There are only three more. You know what? They’ve got to play more, and it’s a little bit of ‘as they go,’ right? See how it goes. But Slava’s been really good. You look at it minutes-wise, and how he’s got to play against players, and what he gives us, power-play…We’ve tried to get him into some penalty killing stuff, so give him credit. He’s the youngest guy on our defense. When you think about how young they are, that’s a kid that’s really stepping up.”

On who will start in goal at Chicago on Sunday:
“Jeez, I haven’t thought about it. Quite honest, I didn’t know who it was yesterday. It’s a good situation. I said we were going to ride a hot goalie, but at the same time, our schedule’s got to demand that Jonathan and Jonathan both play well for us.”

On whether ‘Jonathan’ will start on Sunday:
“It’s ‘Joe Bernier’ and ‘Quicker’. Joe. Quick.”

On whether he’s been pleased with any particular line’s chemistry:
“There’s very few ‘line chemistries’ in the NHL. It’s usually two guys and then somebody else. Every team is like that. It’s not ours. There are guys that play together – Kopitar-Brown, Stoll-Lewis, pretty much. We split Richards-Carter up to get more out of our center ice men. So you know what, there are a bunch of young guys up there too, and they’re trying to find their way, and we’re trying to show them the way. We’ve got some older guys that still haven’t scored a goal this year. We’re actually a quarter of a way into our season, so they’re on a pace that’s not really ‘career averages’. We’ve got to keep working with them.”

On Clifford’s shot:
“The best decision is to shoot, two-on-one. He shot the puck.”

On the ‘best line’ being whichever line Clifford has been on:
“He didn’t play much tonight. He was on two or three lines. We just need his energy. We need his physical presence. If you look at it, he’s…had not even a shot a game, and we’ve been talking to him about shooting pucks more instead of looking off…If you shoot the puck, sometimes good things happen.”

On whether the decision to shoot rather than pass is a depiction of Clifford’s maturity and confidence:
“It’s a little bit of both. I don’t think it’s ‘maturity’. It’s having the offensive ability to know when to do it and when not to do it.”

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