On what aspects of Brayden McNabb’s game provide him comfort when aligning McNabb alongside two different defensemen in Matt Greene and Drew Doughty:
Well, we moved him with Greene because Jake is more comfortable with Drew than Brayden would be. And as you go deeper into the season, it’s not training camp when you’re just rolling four lines, especially when you’re playing higher powered teams. Sometimes you don’t want to expose players. You want to take advantage of what they have. It’s not so much ‘who he’s more comfortable with’ now. Those are our six defensemen, and we have the flexibility of Marty being able to play the right side. I think that we like Muzzin with Doughty, and that’s that.
On Martinez’s “offensive spike” on the right side last season:
Well, we’re not looking for an ‘offensive spike’ from Marty. The position is one, that if you want to be on a good team, is that you move the puck out of the zone really well and you defend really well, so we’re not looking for an ‘offensive spike’ from Marty. If he plays the right side with Robyn, or if he plays the left side with Greener, I think he’s playing with the same players that just shoot different.
On what it means to have Jake Muzzin back:
Basically we’re replacing a skilled righthander with a skilled lefthander in the big picture, when you look at it.
On whether he has seen an improved pace in Andy Andreoff’s game:
He had a good end of training camp, and we’re trying to manage who he’s out on the ice against, and now we’ll see how he handles not playing center and going back to the position he was before. That’s the 12 we have. I’m not getting too dramatic about individuals. We’re trying to win hockey games, and we have to find different ways to do it.
On whether he’s eventually looking forward to getting on the road despite the built-in advantages that come with being at home:
Well, with the power that you have Jon, unless you can change the schedule, I have nothing. I can’t even give you any help at all. I mean, just think, maybe next year we’ll play all 82 at home. Maybe there won’t be any. I mean, that’s one of the advantages of maybe winning the Stanley Cup two out of three years. You get to play every game at home…Be thankful with our injuries that we’ve had that we’ve been able to stay at home, because the big advantage at home is- [Reporter: Treatment.] All that part of it. The therapy, the rehab, the familiarity with your staff, you’re not traveling – all those things. It really makes no difference to me where we play. So I’m still going to go through the same preparation part of it, and our team will, too. But the advantage that we have right now is we are a right-to-the-limit roster, so anything we can do to give them a little more rest or a little more treatment or a little more familiarity with where they’re practicing and their schedule, then that’s the advantage that we have.
On whether Marian Gaborik and Trevor Lewis will travel on the upcoming road trip:
I have no idea. I mean, they’re not on IR, they’re day-to-day, all that stuff. [Reporter: Trevor’s on IR.] Well, technically he’s not IR. IR is seven days…I can’t even give you a definitive anything on that until we just take it a day at a time, ask them how they’re doing, and where they’re at, and that’s basically what we do. They’re both training hard, and they’d jump back into full practice, and they’ll be ready to play.
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