April 27 practice quotes: Robyn Regehr

On whether a meaningful season finale serves as a good springboard to the postseason:
“Well, I think what happens is as the regular season winds down, the games just progressively get more important, and you want to elevate the level of your game both as individuals and as a team so you’re ready to make that transition into the playoffs. So I think that’s a thing we’re focused on. We’re coming off two games, two losses on the road – games where we didn’t play that well, and we want to get back to the way we that we know we can play. So that’s kind of what we’re thinking about.”

On what he didn’t like about the two previous road games:
“Well, we were spending too much time in our own zone, and when you do that, you end up giving up chances, and we gave up too many good chances, too many shots. The big thing there, I think is we need to as defensemen is get better at getting back, getting back to pucks quickly and getting them up to our forwards in a good position. And then it’s our responsibility to make that next play where we can get up and get going on the offense. So I think if we do a better job of that, and also a little bit better job of our coverage in our own zone – not allowing the play to go from the side boards to the back of the net to the other side and back and forth that way – it’s always very difficult to defend when you have to move coverage all over your zone. What we want to do is we want to get it, we want to get it into one corner along the boards, we want to keep it there and get the puck back as soon as we can and get going the other way. So we need to work on that as well.”

On whether L.A.’s efforts to play outside of its zone is challenged by San Jose’s forecheck:
“Yeah, they’ve got two very talented offensive top lines there with the Thornton line and also the Marleau line next, and their strength is getting in hard on the forecheck and getting pucks and with Thornton, he loves to use the back of the net. And then the Marleau-Couture line is a little bit different, but they still like to move you around and find holes in the slot and things. Very similar, but they do have a few different little things that they like to do as a line, and the best way to shut them down is to do a good job in our zone and get the puck back and make good plays going the other way, and go play in the offensive zone. Make them play in their own zone. That’s really where we can get after those guys.”

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