Opening statement:
If there’s a 6:30 game, the home team has a choice of 8:30, 9:30 or 10:30 morning skate, so we skated at [9:30] this morning…Well, you have to approve it. 8:30, 9:30, 10:30 so that the home team picks one of them, and the visitors pick whichever one you don’t pick. It doesn’t affect anybody in this series. [Reporter: Would your players have shown up at 8:30?] Oh yeah. They like going early. Even when we say 9:30, it doesn’t matter. We’re up. They’re always 10 minutes early on the ice.
On who becomes more disrupted by the disruption of a routine, coaches or players:
I think we have enough time changes now during the playoffs that it’s disruptive once you’ve gone through it a little bit because they change the time so much. We didn’t even know what time this game was until when, Gar 5, I think? So we’ve been used to it. Even in the last couple, three years, they’ve moved game times. We’ve had noon starts. That’s tough. That’s tough on both teams, especially zone changes.
On what changed when the Kings “turned the tide” against San Jose:
I don’t think any of those change. The reason you’re in the playoffs is because you know how to win and you can deal with losing. I don’t think anything really changes. I think that if you’re only alluding to the last series that we played, we played probably the best game of the series in Game 3 and lost in overtime. You win, you lose.
On whether it took Marian Gaborik any time to adapt to Los Angeles’ style:
Zero. You know what? I talked to Gabby when I got him in Winnipeg. I told him he was playing with Kopi. I’m not going to go out of the way to change how he plays. Just give him a real basic guideline. I said it the next couple days after we got him. His hockey IQ is off the charts, so he can adjust in a hurry. He’s been an easy guy, quite honest, to deal with. [Reporter: Did you know that about him before you got him?] Not really. But you do know that everybody who’s seen Gabby – because you look at stats, and everybody will say that he’s just a goal scorer. Well, he’s not just a goal scorer. Other than early in his career and then this year with the collarbone, he’s been a real durable guy and a guy that can play minutes, play lots of situations, play both wings. I know it was asked at the start, and there’s the assumptions and opinions that everybody has of him, but I don’t think anybody was right.
On young players rising to elite levels in the playoffs:
I think young guys have to learn, because they don’t get in those occasions or situations very often as a young player, or during their career, when you think about it. The proven guys, well then you’re not asking that question. They are proven. I mean, it’s easy to say, ‘He’s a veteran player,’ or ‘He’s an experienced player.’ You know what? He’s not a veteran player or an experienced player unless he’s done it at playoff time. You can play a lot, but until you’ve played in a lot of elimination games or won in those games or lost in those games, you can’t say you’re proven or experienced. If you’re talking about that player, Jonathan, or just because he’s won those games, you know what? It always comes down to those guys once they’ve won and they’re looked on as an elite player. You watch last night? Lundqvist, right? You know what? Those guys are the top four or five goalies in the league. They expect to win. Jonathan expects to win. There’s been a lot of talk in this series about Anaheim’s goaltenders, but at the end of the day, the reason there is is because they’re young guys. They’re unproven. You look at Andersen and Gibson, Jonathan’s proven. Jonathan’s won…the Conn Smythe. Jonathan was part of the Jennings this year. So that’s what he expects of himself. It’s not what we expect.
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