May 5 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On the team’s momentum:
“I don’t think either team has had much momentum in this series. It’s how close it is. It’s basically a one-goal, one-shot kind of deal, right? You know what? The players are confident on both teams, so you just kind of go shift-to-shift.”

On the decision to go with seven defensemen:
“Our fourth line hasn’t been playing much, and our fourth line right wing has hardly played at all. We just thought we’d give maybe Jeff Carter and Dustin Brown and Justin Williams a couple more minutes, which gets away from matchups. It worked last night. [Reporter: You were happy with the way it worked out?] It gives our defense some energy, and obviously Keaton – you take Keaton out, and you’re losing a guy who’s a really good penalty killer for us, and we didn’t want to do that.”

On the team’s improvement at the faceoff dot in Game 3:
“Yeah, I know you get the stat sheets and it’s always ‘This guy was five and nine’ and all that, but really when you break it all out, it’s a little different. There’s a lot of faceoffs in this series because you have 10 good centermen, really, guys that are on faceoffs out of all the forwards. There are a lot of faceoffs that are not won or lost. It’s just in the feet, and it’s someone coming in and getting the puck. It’s not the centermen. So I think that’s a big part of what goes on there.”

On any concern with the team’s third period play, considering they were outshot 10-2 last night:
“Whatever. Whatever. You count shots. I don’t. Got to understand it’s playoffs. Right? It’s playoffs. It’s one-goal games. All three of them are one-goal games. Everybody’s trying to score a goal, but it’s not that easy when you [have] the two best defensive teams in the conference.”

On whether there’s encouragement that the team is within a game in the series and Jeff Carter and Anze Kopitar haven’t scored:
“Just think they’re gonna and then it’ll be a one-goal game. You guys are way too caught up in the offense part of it. Haven’t watched enough playoff games yet.”

On whether he has kept up with the “looser” style of hockey in the Eastern Conference:
“No. Our side is not like that. Maybe their side is. I don’t know. We don’t watch their side much. It’s another different league, right?”

On a Stanley Cup Final to be contested between two teams that haven’t played each other:
“I’ve seen that before about 20 years ago. 18, whatever it was.”

On the “war of attrition” and the 247 combined hits between the teams:
“Well, you know what? I agree totally with what Hitch says. Whatever you guys pick up as the mantra for the game, I thought playoffs were supposed that. And it is physical, and it is staying out of the penalty box, and it is about winning battles, and that’s what the two teams do. I really don’t think it’s been a confrontational series at all yet.”

On his evaluation between his own numbers and the league’s numbers regarding hits:
“Well, what is a hit, right? I’ll guarantee if you sat down in here, you’d have 15 different ideas about what a hit was, right? Is it a loud noise? Is it a take-out? Is it a missed hit? Is it two guys falling down? Is it one guy falling down? Is it a guy lifting his stick, taking the puck away? Is it a guy hanging onto a puck and he’s sort of getting popped and putting a guy on his back? There’s so many different areas. But most of it is about the loose puck, itself, that you’re either trying to get possession or keep possession. There’s really not a ‘hit’ stat. It’s contact, take-out, recovery.”

On a double-minor assessed to Drew Doughty in the altercation with David Perron:
“I think it’s been a point of emphasis in the series, and it’s hard to believe that Drew Doughty can get four minutes on that play. There’s a lot of times when there’s no penalties…That was not the right call.”

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