October 23 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On whether allowing three power play goals to Calgary was an anomaly:
I think it’s based more on the amount of time we’re out there, right? Every team, if you give ‘em more than three opportunities, they’re going to going to get good opportunities, meaning that we took too many penalties. We took six penalties after the two-minute mark of the second period. You’re going to run penalty killers out…if you killed all them, that’s 12 minutes, if you think about it. That 12 out of 38 is too many, and our best penalty killer is Kopi by far, and that’s the one penalty that he has taken in nine games, and he gets to watch it. [Reporter: Who’s the second best penalty killer after Kopi?] Up front, it’s usually Lewie. [Reporter: You don’t want your goalie to be your best penalty killer.] I think you have to be, though…we have good penalty killing because we have good goaltending. It’s clearly the biggest assets that teams have. But it’s one of those things, right? Like you think about it, special teams are an important part of the game now. We were top three or four in the league last year in not taking penalties, and quite honest for the last almost year and a half, we’ve done that. So we just have to reinforce that, and you’re going to have games that you get scored against. That’s the way it works.

On the Coyotes without Shane Doan, who is day-to-day with a lower body injury:
They looked fine last night. They just moved Mosser (David Moss) up there with Ribeiro and Boedker, and the big right winger went right in where he was, so it really didn’t affect them. They signed the right handed centerman (Jeff Halpern) last week, the guy that used to be here, so they could plug him in on the fourth line. If you lose a guy for a couple games, it’s the way it is. Big deal….It’s the way it works. If you lose guys for an extended period of time, then you’re concerned. But as a coaching staff, when guys go out for one or two games, the guy that went out is feeling really bad because he’s not playing, but there are two or three guys that are bitching and moaning because they’re not, either. So they get an opportunity, it’s either sink or swim. [Reporter: And they don’t want to sink, do they? They want to stay in there.] We’d like to give them every opportunity to prove that they deserve to stay in our lineup for an extended period of time.

On what the team could improve on after 10 games:
Yeah, our centermen have over 10 games in [and haven’t scored.] I bet in the history of the game there’s no team that’s 6-4 and their centermen haven’t scored a goal yet. In the history of the game. [Is there anything you can do to address that?] I can’t play center. I’m not very good.

On whether he was coaching San Jose when Evgeni Nabokov scored:
I forget Nabby’s goal. No, I don’t think I was. I can’t remember…There’s probably more of them, but now that you can go point-one, point-two, point-three, there were probably more goals scored before, but the clock went to zero faster. I mean, [Mike Smith’s] was point-one. They don’t go upstairs and look at it. In the old days they had guys in the box making sure they did.

On whether he’d like to get Keaton Ellerby in a game:
Yeah, but we can only dress 20, so…Of course I would like to get him into a game. That’s why he’s here. I’d like to get Marty in a game, too. I’d like to get Muzzin in a game. Like, into a game.

On whether he uses bulletin board material to motivate his team:
Not very often. You’ve got exposure and everything you want. Why do I have to get it to ‘em? You can’t just go buy the Chicago Tribune, right? You’ve pretty much got whatever you want now.

On Drew Doughty’s recent play:
We’ve tried to cut his minutes back. It doesn’t sound like much – about two or three a game, which should help his energy level. We’re trying to get him to be on the ice for fewer goals against. We’re trying to get him to be on the ice for more goals five-on-five. We’re trying to get him to be a better penalty killer. He’s done a good job on our power play, but you’ve got to be the whole package.

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