February 6 morning skate quotes: Darryl Sutter

On an “up tempo” morning skate:
It’s the first time we’ve had a game where we’ve had two days between for quite a while. Just making sure that we’re sharp.

On looking to “get their legs going” at the morning skate:
If you’d look at our schedule, as I said, there’s two days, and then in March we have I think three stretches where there’s two days, so it’s good to get that once.

On whether he was happy with the tempo in the loss to Chicago:
I haven’t had a problem for quite a while in the way we’ve played. I’ve said that, and it sounds like I’ve said it. I’ve answered that the same way for quite a while.

On Alec Martinez’s progress:
He’s on the 23-man roster, so that means he’s not on IR.

On paying attention to the standings and where the team needs to be at the break:
We’d like to be in a playoff spot at the break. [Reporter: I know you follow that closely. Have you sat down and figured out how many points it might take to get into the top eight in the west?] In the top eight? I think if you’ve followed my answers to your questions earlier in the year, I said a hundred points. So whether it’s still a hundred, that’s something you’ll have to figure out…the reason that we are in a playoff spot is because of our record against San Jose and Vancouver. [Reporter: Do you think there could be a hundred point team that might not make the playoffs in the West?] I said that at the start. There might be one. There’s a lot of good teams. We have 11 now that are potential playoff teams.

On how he looks at the Pacific Division’s recent struggles:
I think you just go game-to-game. If you look at it, we’ve won two games in the last month in two tough buildings, so those four points, instead of looking at why you didn’t get points, look at why we did in those buildings that we did in beating San Jose and St. Louis. That’s why we are in a playoff spot. Remember, it’s when they realigned the division. There’s three, three and two. You’re trying to stay in that three hole.

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