Shootout decision-making

The Los Angeles Kings are 5-2 in the seven shootouts they’ve taken part in this year, with Jonathan Quick posting a 4-0 record, Ben Scrivens going 0-2, and Martin Jones winning his lone appearance by stopping all nine shots in Tuesday’s 3-2 win at Anaheim.

While Kings goalies have stopped 24 of 31 shots faced in the extra session, their own shooters have scored 10 times on 29 opportunities. On Friday, Darryl Sutter described how the decisions are made to use particular shooters into the shootout at the appropriate time.

On the criteria of choosing players in a shootout that extends past three rounds:
Maybe guys who have a good shot where the guys think that they can beat ‘em. So if Brownie has a certain shot he likes, or Willie has a certain shot he likes, or lefty-righty. The other night in Anaheim, Hiller’s the other way. So that affects it a little bit. Sometimes guys that are hot. It’s not very often it gets to that. I don’t think there is a real pattern. [Reporter: So when you go into a nine-round shootout like the other night, once you get past the third, fourth, fifth sixth, do you have an order in mind?] It’s the same as who I like on the ice in certain situations. Same thing there. I think at that point you’re looking at how guys have played, things like that.

On whether Jones’ success in the shootout illustrates the need to have to spend for an “elite” goalie:
Well, maybe if the ‘elite’ goalie was in there, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten to a shootout. I mean, I don’t know. I’m not a big fan of the shootout. Like I said, I told Kinger after the game, ‘You got the winning goal, Kinger.’ Nobody’s ever going to talk about that. All they’ll talk about is Marty. Even when they were saying Kopi wasn’t scoring, Kopi was winning us games. Why isn’t it a stat, if it’s such an important part of it? I don’t get it. Anyways, it doesn’t matter. That’s my opinion. But does that take away from the ‘elite’ goalie part of it? You know what, they run hot and cold. I’ve had elite goalies that weren’t very good in shootouts. They might go for four or five games, and you’d wonder, ‘What the hell is going on?’ And then pretty soon, nobody could score on them for a month…Anyways, Kipper was like that, too. Whatever it was. Because it serves no purpose for me to talk to the goalies. I’ve asked Jonathan before, ‘Do you want to know who’s shooting?’ He goes ‘No,’ because now, with all the film and all that, they really study it, and they see everything. And that’s probably with guys, even with skaters that go in, they kind of pick odds and look at stuff where guys have had success. I always asked Billy before the game. ‘Who do you think, if we get to it, who should go first?’ Ultimately, I’ll decide kind of who the guys are, but sometimes Billy will say, ‘Maybe it’s good to have a righty or a lefty,’ or depending on how the goalie plays. There’s probably more that goes into it before the game for a few minutes than actually that process.

On using Trevor Lewis in Buffalo:
I told him a couple of games ago, that if he got a shootout, he was going. Just because of how good he’d been playing, and he sort of schleprockin’ cause he hadn’t scored…and he’s got the one move, right? And I said if we get in a shootout, you’re going.

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