Schedule on the verge of easing up for Kings

In a refreshing departure from the compacted schedules of the past two seasons, the schedule opens up a bit for the Kings, whose game against the Wild on Sunday is the only game over a six-day stretch of the early season calendar.

“Well, it’s not one game in [six] days, it’s one game tomorrow,” Darryl Sutter said.

Well, yes, and due focus will be played on the Wild, as the team spoke about early today.

If you polled the players, many would back up the comments that Jeff Carter shared after Thursday’s win over St. Louis, that if faced with the choice of having to play too many or too few games early in the season, they’d always choose the recently completed four-in-six than the three-in-10 experienced by Minnesota.

“I like our schedule this past week rather than the coming week,” Dustin Brown said. “As a player, it’s hard, it’s physically demanding, mentally and emotionally it’s all there. But at the end of the day, as a player, it’s more fun to play games than it is to practice. It’s just the ebb and flow of the season, but I think the majority of players would rather play every other day rather than what we’re going to have that’s coming up.”

It does appear as though there’s an interesting placement of CBA-mandated recovery days coming, even after Friday’s day off. Players receive four off-days per month, and travel days or days in which players take part in community or public relations activities don’t count towards the recovery day quota.

Given that Meet the Players is on Tuesday, and that the team isn’t likely to hold a recovery day the day before a game and can’t on the day it will travel across the country to Philadelphia, it’s looking like the only other available days that could contain recovery days would be Monday, October 20, and Friday, October 24. Scheduling off-days on the 20th and 24th would give the Kings three recovery days over an eight-day span. The Kings will conclude their six-game home stand with games against Buffalo on October 23 and Columbus on October 26.

“I guess it’s important to have those recovery days,” Alec Martinez said. “You get your rest in and things like that and regroup mentally and physically. But I think it’s just a matter of maintaining intensity when we’re out there. We had a good practice today. I think you just have to stay on it, stay mentally strong if you’re not playing as many games. And I guess the same goes if you’re playing a lot of games and you’re not practicing. When you’re just playing, you want to keep everything tight and maintain that level of intensity and focus.”

Dustin Brown, on having three potential recovery days over an eight-day span:
It definitely gives you a little extra energy depending on how your body is feeling. That can help.

Alec Martinez, on the early season schedule:
I guess you get right into it. It’s good. I think that we had a lot of hockey right away there, obviously right at the beginning. You get a couple days in between games, especially at home, it’s important to have good practices and stay with it. Keep your game tight in a sense, but it’s good. It’s obviously something a little different than we faced the last two years with the Olympic break taking up two weeks and then with the lockout, everything has been pretty crammed the past couple years. It’s a little bit different, but everyone is dealing with the same thing.