Jonathan Quick and Dustin Brown were not on the ice for today’s Kings practice at Toyota Sports Center. Darryl Sutter answered questions about their availability while addressing Dustin Brown’s diminished usage in situational play this season.
On Dustin Brown and Jonathan Quick:
Both of them guys – Quickie’s sick, and Brownie came in. Hopefully get that bug out of our system…We’ll see how they are tomorrow.
On Jonathan Quick’s availability against Anaheim:
Well, he’s not skating today. We felt better if he stayed at home. It doesn’t matter. I mean, it does matter about Jonathan, but at the same time, Jonesy’s ready to go, too.
On whether the team would call a goaltender up:
It’s not to that point. He’s sick. We have bugs. Just trying to make sure it doesn’t go through our team.
On whether Dustin Brown is sick:
Yeah.
On players getting sick:
It’s no big deal. Just try and manage it. When you’re home, it’s a lot easier. It works.
On the players referencing parts of the game they’d like to clean up:
I think there are different parts of your game where there are always details that slip in terms of what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s not just system-wise, but individual-wise or line-wise or pair-wise, or power play-wise, or penalty kill-wise, faceoff-wise. It seems like every day you’re taking one little piece of the game and working at it to make sure that everybody – just so they know that they can get better at it. I mean, we did it before we went on the ice this morning. It was different parts of last night. Take guys after. So it’s not so much on the ice. They transfer that into the games.
On Dustin Brown’s lack of penalty killing time:
Penalty killing is based on performance. [Reporter: What part of his performance have you maybe not liked in terms of how it relates to penalty killing?] Other guys are better penalty killers.
On what has been missing from Brown’s game:
Brownie’s having the same type of year as that year that I came here and we won the Cup. You were asking the same questions in March of that year that you are right now, and you know the answers.
On an assertion that Brown’s performance last season was “par for the course”:
I’ll just tell you, it was a career year. It wasn’t ‘par for the course.’ He’s a 20-goal scorer. So 18 in 48 is what?…You couldn’t do it over the course of his career. He’s almost 30 years old. He’s a borderline 20-goal scorer. So if he scores 20 and plays the whole game…then you’ve got a player. Part of getting Marian Gaborik onto this [team], it sorts it out. It puts Brownie where he should be. It puts Carts in where he’s not being overloaded. That part of it. Don’t expect anything more out of Dustin Brown. It’s based on how you played last night and how you play tomorrow night in this league…When you don’t have a veteran team, you need your veterans. It’s not ‘captains.’ You need your veterans to be great examples for your group. Otherwise you’re going to have trouble with your ice time.
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