On whether he was able to see his nephew, Brandon:
Yeah, we were cuttin’ deals. [Reporter: Who does what on the farm this summer?] No, Brandon lives down by his dad, so I don’t see him too much.
On the game against Pittsburgh in January:
We didn’t get many scoring opportunities at all in that game. [Reporter: Was it more of what the Penguins did, or what you guys didn’t do?] They’re a good hockey club, so a little of both, probably.
On Pittsburgh being without Evgeni Malkin and “some” of its best players:
Is that ‘some’? That’s a pretty good ‘some.’…He’s a pretty good player. [Reporter: But on their top line, still, they’ve been producing really well. They have been struggling behind that. Of course they have Sidney Crosby, but can you just talk about if your team will address that any differently than they would if a guy like Malkin, Letang or so on and so forth were in the lineup?] You know we just played Philadelphia and Washington. Good players play against good players. It’s not like they’re a one-line team or a one-player team. You might argue that the best player, other than Kopitar, in the league, is Crosby. So we’ve got to handle him tonight.
On recovering from second half slides, and whether Los Angeles hit a “switch”:
No, I don’t think there’s a switch in this league. The year that I came, I got here in December, and we had to make the playoffs. They were out of the playoffs. So obviously if you get 90-to-a hundred points, I don’t think there’s too many slides. Once in a while we struggle scoring, but I don’t think there’s anything to do with work or any of that stuff.
On what sticks out about Pittsburgh’s power play:
Sidney Crosby, James Neal, Jokinen, Maatta. They stick out.
On Eastern Conference road trips:
You know, the trips, when you come here, we’ve had the long New York trip. We played all those teams, and then obviously this one with the three in four…we’ve been able to get to the time zone, and then settle a little bit. It’s been tougher at the end of trips, to be quite honest, than at the starts.
On whether a “push back” is expected given Pittsburgh’s recent results:
Well, they’re coming off two teams that we see a lot, St. Louis and Phoenix. They’re pretty good checking teams.
On the use of the word “heavy” to describe teams:
Well, if one guys says it, then everybody copies it. Nothing else to talk about. [Reporter: Is it heavier in the west?] I don’t really know. St. Louis, I mean if you just go on it, they’re a big team, and we just came from Washington, and they have the biggest wingers in the league. So, say what you want – we played ‘em twice in a week. That was a big team. Especially adding Penns to the lineup, that was a big team.
On whether the current level of play is similar to that during the 2012 stretch run:
I can not honestly answer it, because that year I only coached 40-something games, and then last year was…40-something games again. So this is the first time I’ve been in an 82-run with this group. And, just because we won the Cup two years ago, there are lots of guys that don’t have the experience. We play a lot of guys that played limited minutes or haven’t played at all.
On whether Los Angeles uses any type of statistics or metrics to measure possession:
I think every team does now. For sure.
On the pride of his family’s longevity in hockey, and seeing Brandon in Pittsburgh:
He’s a good kid, and all of our family stays really respectful of what the game’s about and what teams are about. That’s for sure.
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