April 24 postgame quotes: Darryl Sutter

On Dustin Brown’s hit on Jason Pominville:
“I was disappointed with what the ruling was. There was no intent or anything. You’re talking about a right-handed forward taking the puck on the boards, and he’s had two hands on his stick. You know what? Brownie’s already said it. You guys read the quote. What do I have to say? Exactly what he said is right. There was no intent or anything. The player ran into his elbow. He didn’t go looking for the player or anything like that.”

On Dustin Brown’s linemates adjusting to playing without him:
“Well, you don’t replace Brownie in your lineup. But you know what? I look at it the other way. He’s got two games off. Get some rest for playoffs.”

On whether seeding doesn’t matter in the NHL playoffs “these days”:
“I think since the salary cap came into place, that is ‘these days’, and that…makes everything an even playing field. Everybody has a chance. It’s funny, because even coming into Detroit…everybody’s talking about 21 years the Detroit Red Wings made the playoffs. Well, what’s the biggest accomplishment is what they’ve done since the salary cap. It’s not just about making the playoffs. It’s about what you do once you get there.”

On what Detroit did well in the third period to “carry the intensity”:
“I don’t think they did anything different than they did the whole game. We came rolling in here on our private jet at two this morning. I’m sure they had a good sleep last night.”

On Jonathan Quick’s performance:
“Both goalies both games – last game and tonight – were outstanding for us, and that’s what we want. It was awesome.”

On whether Los Angeles struggled to match Detroit’s intensity:
“I just answered that question. I thought we played hard and played really well. It’s tough to win. We’re not scoring many goals right now. I don’t think that’s got to do with intensity.”

On the biggest difference between the team on the road and at home:
“Just strictly, if you look statistically – and it wasn’t the last two nights – but if you’re going to over the course of a 24-game tough schedule…you might as well just mail it in, right? Just because of your schedule and time zones and that. But if you break it down now, your road schedules over, clearly the difference is goals against if you look at it. Just do it. It’s about 30 or 40 goals different. So it’s significant. [Reporter: Is it a defensive breakdown?] No. You think it is? We’re seventh or eighth or ninth in the league in scoring, so I don’t think it’s ‘defensive breakdowns’. Your road schedule is broken down this year because of the way this condensed schedule is. There are some tough parts of it. If you look at parts of it when Quicker struggled earlier in the year or when our penalty killing struggled, it’s not like it’s a defensive breakdown. If that was [it], you would not be a good goals against team. There’s been different areas that have hurt us during the year on the road, and the last couple or three games on the road quite honest I think we’ve played really well. We just haven’t scored any goals.”

On Dustin Penner being a healthy scratch:
“Yeah. He was tired last night, so I was going to assume he’d be tired tonight.”

On whether he has a similar feeling about this year’s team as last year’s team:
“Last year we were hanging on for the eighth spot, and we clinched sixth two or three games ago. So that’s the only difference.”

On the team’s play heading into the playoffs compared to last year:
“It’s probably really similar. Getting Greene back – and he’s struggled a little bit, so it’s good that he’s got a few games under his belt. Robyn came at the deadline, so that’s a new player. Obviously Dustin Penner’s had a tough time. Last year it looked like he was taking a step up at this time of the year, so we felt good about putting him on that line. Right now we’ve got to make some decisions. It’s a different team. We’ll see what happens the next few days.”

Notes have been posted; I’m going to save several of Sutter’s comments for an off-day update on Thursday.

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