April 29 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On the mindset of the team:
“We played well coming into postseason, so that’s what you want as a coaching staff, and you want the detail in their game, and they’ve had that. So now it’s the emotion response, and that’s basically the individual’s responsibility.”

On whether the Blues are a “dangerous” team:
“I think both teams are dangerous teams if you do it from a very statistical standpoint. It’s amazing how close the two teams are in percentage points and a lot of the stats that are critical to winning. So that’s what they did during the regular season. Playoffs are about players stepping up.”

On the importance of bringing Robyn Regehr in:
“Well, it was important, very simple. Even though they’re different types of players – Willie and him – they play close to the same minutes, and with that experience also. That was important for us going down the stretch, to have another player like that. The last time I coached Robyn was the year after the lockout, and we felt strongly that we had a better team than the team that went to the finals, and we got beat in the first round. It was a battle with Anaheim. I know how he’s going to play at playoff time.”

On Dwight King being an unsung hero last year, and the need for…
“He scored five goals in the playoffs for us last year, so I don’t know if that’s called an ‘unsung hero’ or not. You need everybody to produce. Playoffs are – I’ve said that always – the same guys get the interviews and the credit and all that stuff, right? Captains and stars become the center always, right? But in playoffs, you don’t win games without having a really good team. So when you’re talking about players like that, that’s how you win. Especially when they jam the schedule down your throat, you’re going to need lots of guys to play really well.”

On whether he expects a “feisty” series:
“You don’t want to be a team sitting in the penalty box watching, and neither team is a highly penalized team. Both teams play a real, quite honest, a very similar game.”

On why the Kings haven’t appeared to look as tired mentally as other previous champions:
“You know, I’ve said it lots, Pierre. Our players have done an incredible job of handling the attention. They’ve done an awesome job. It hasn’t affected their performance one bit. I never talked to the other teams about it because once the lockout started, well, I think it’s totally different. You don’t know how it’s going to be handled. That’s the best part about our team. If you look at it, this team has finished our regular season, that’s over a 100 point team when you [account for an 82-game season]. The players deserve a lot of credit for that. There was zero highs and lows in our game. Zero. It was basically just managing through a couple of the injuries and a couple of the guys that didn’t do as much as they should during the lockout.”

On his assessment of the team entering a first round series a year after a championship:
“Hey, experience has got to help. It doesn’t matter. Put yourself in the players’ shoes. The experience of playing in a long playoffs helps. It’s not necessarily winning. It’s understanding how the long haul is. I think what’s getting overlooked clearly, because we didn’t play St. Louis until the second round last year. St. Louis knows how to win, too, for sure. I’m not caught up in the nostalgic part of it.”

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