April 26 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On Matt Greene not taking part in practice:
“Greener’s not related to his back, but he’s day-to-day again with something else. [Reporter: Did it happen during the game?] Yeah. It has nothing to do with his [back]. [Reporter: Is he questionable for tomorrow?] We don’t talk about injury. If they’re on IR, they’re on IR. If they’re not, then they’re…Especially at this time of year. You know what? We need him to get minutes, so I said before we need him to get game situations in. It’s disappointing.”

On proving that home ice advantage in the playoffs was “irrelevant” last year:
“You know what? I’m not sure how irrelevant it was, because the last game that we won in the playoffs was on home ice, and that does make a difference. The teams that secured home ice advantage in a shortened schedule early – which the three division winners did – did it because they basically sprinted out of the gate, and they secured their positions…Division titles don’t mean zip. All they are is dirty flags, right? But home ice is important early because if you look at a team like Anaheim, for example, it can have some guys take games off if they feel it’s important, or cut minutes back, which is sort of what we did. Our whole goal – and everybody’s is – is to secure position as soon as you can, and then work from there. So once we secured six, that was like a load off for us. The next part is trying to get healthy and see about home ice.”

On whether he could pinpoint a high point or low point of the season:
“Nope. At the start we were supposed to be all hung over. We weren’t. So we’ve operated on it if you do it right now…the six teams that have all got those spots, they’re all on over 100-point clips. So you know what the most important thing is? Stability and consistency. It’s not about if you’re in the right frame of mind and you’ve done enough work off the ice and on the ice, then you have a chance to be a 100-point team. And if that isn’t enough to get you home ice, then so be it. Highs and lows are for those guys that are right now 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. They have highs, they have lows.”

On whether there’s anything specific to accomplish against San Jose, other than the win:
“That’s the end result of whether you win or lose. It’s not as important as the players making sure they’re all trying to play as well as they can so that they’re ready for – not looking ahead – but so that they’re ready for the first game. That’s more important. There’s no ‘high and low’ tomorrow night once we get ready for Game 1.”

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