September 20 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On the first three on-ice sessions of training camp:
No issues. [We’d like to] work our way into the games. Lots of guys, lots of reps.

On how he’ll determine who’ll stay at home, and who’ll travel to Arizona on Monday:
All the veterans will play one of the games. We’ll fill in with kids from there. That’s one advantage for young players when you’re playing a doubleheader like that. There are a lot of guys that get to play who normally wouldn’t, so it’s good for them.

On how L.A. avoided the injuries associated with the first day of training camp:
Well, we didn’t avoid it. Drew got hurt prior to camp, and as I’ve said all along, when you play as late as we did, we had guys who didn’t have surgery until July. So a lot of guys had theirs in April. But I want to stay away from the practice injuries for sure, especially with the big groups that we have. I just want to get through the first few days.

On Mike Richards’ fitness testing:
All of our guys looked really good. Not specifically Mike, but all of our guys. I’ve been really impressed with all of them, what they did this summer and their mindset coming back.

On his expectations of Brayden McNabb:
Continue to build on what he did after we traded for him. Use the playoff experience of being here with the team, get familiar with everybody and familiar with how we play. [Reporter: How close is he to being an NHL regular?] Well, we just practiced two days. I really couldn’t answer that.

On whether he was in touch with Richards over the summer:
We didn’t have much time off, so there was a lot of interaction with all our players. [Reporter: Some of the guys said they felt it was like they never left.] I talked to Mike about that on the ice yesterday. I said it was like we just finished practice. You have to know when to [communicate]. Teams have five months off. What does interaction mean? Sometimes they need a little space in there. We didn’t have five months off. They don’t need me every day. They’re used to winning. They don’t need me every day. If you need somebody watching from above, that’s usually those teams that are doing a lot of watching from above.

On who will coach the L.A. team on Monday, given that he’s traveling:
The other coaches. I lost. Greener and Willie flipped to see who was going on the road, and Greener won. So his team’s staying at home. Willie’s is going. But I was on Willie’s team, so I go…I did that last year, too. [Reporter: Wait, you’re the coach who can dictate these things.] No, stick with the team plan.

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