October 30 postgame quotes: Darryl Sutter

On the 4-3 overtime win over San Jose:
You know what? We’re playing the best team in the league. The best part for me was the fact that they scored a few seconds in and we were able to come right back again.

On the game’s special teams:
I’m sure too many men on the ice twice doesn’t happen very often. I think one of them was one of the ones where the puck goes there and that’s bad luck for them, good luck for us. But it doesn’t happen very often. We’ve been a team to this point that’s taken too many bad penalties and it’s cost us a couple hockey games.

On whether there’s anything he’d like to be transferred into Saturday’s game:
We don’t really take anything from one game into the next, because we got beat last night, so if we took that then we would have lost tonight. So I don’t take much. I’m still very much ‘park and ride.’

On the team’s forechecking:
Yeah, they’re a tough team to forecheck. They don’t put themselves in a position to turn pucks over or to have pucks that are where they ‘ve got to bang it around the wall.

On Los Angeles’ resiliency:
The bottom line is some guys didn’t play very much last night and sure as hell better play tonight. So they should’ve had some energy and they did, and they played well. A kid like Cliffy is probably the spark for us in the second period.

On Anze Kopitar’s overtime game-winner:
Again, your power play is running out of clock there. We’ve only played 13 games, and I think this is the third four-on-three we’ve had in overtime, which is not something you’ll get a lot. Quite honest, what led to it is Carter made a great play and they had to take the hook.

On whether Kyle Clifford’s last two games represent a step “in the right direction”:
He’s gotta give us a spark. He’s a guy that’s trying to work on getting more minutes and play hard in the lineup. If he does, he gets the chance. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t. He has to play a very straight lined, powerful game and when he doesn’t, he’s not a very effective player.

On what he says to the team when they’re taking “bad penalties”:
Well, we didn’t take any tonight. I think Drew coming in tonight – take away major penalties – Drew is our leading penalty minute guy, right? That’s not normal. So there was some retaliation in this game and there are three or four guys on our team who have to, very simple, cut that out. They don’t get special deals, and it doesn’t matter who they are. They don’t get special deals from the referees. Since I’ve been here, this was a high penalized team, and we don’t have to be a team that takes penalties. You can still play a forceful, physical, intelligent hockey game.

On Daniel Carcillo’s boarding call:
You have to remember that Dan Carcillo has a reputation, so he has to learn that he has a reputation, too. Otherwise he’s not just in trouble with the referees, in trouble with myself, and hopefully with his teammates.

On returning after a loss and playing the conference-leading team on the second night of a back-to-back:
[We had] some guys not play very well last night, quite honest, and they had to play a hell of a lot better tonight to give us a chance. I think that our number one goalie should’ve been fresh and ready to go tonight, and we needed a big game out of him…[Reporter: Bottom line, though, is you get two points in the division, and nothing beats that, right?] No. You want to make the playoffs, you’re going to have to win the majority of your home games. I don’t know what the record will be in our division because of the way it’s off-set this year, but if you want to be a playoff team, they’re big games.

On limiting San Jose to three shots in the third period:
I think both teams are playing as well as they could. It’s not that we’re trying to take all their shots away. That’s impossible to do. They have some pretty forceful offensive players over there.

On whether he’ll watch the replay of the Red Sox winning the World Series:
Jack Ferreira just told me…Other than the National League part of it, I couldn’t get stuck on one team because they’re both blue collar teams, and I kind of wanted them both to win.

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