February 25 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On how the “fourth line” affected the team’s momentum Tuesday night:
In the second period they gave us momentum. We’ve played ‘em quite a bit because we wanted a physical part of our game, and Cliffy and Jorday have got to bring that. It’s strictly related to that. Cliffy tries to bring it every night, and Jordy has struggled with the consistency of that. So when he’s on, you try and play him. Basically, any more than that, you get shifts based on that. [Reporter: Do you think Jordan’s getting better at the consistency side?] It’s four years. It’s his fourth year of it. [Reporter: I don’t mean to elevate one guy over that line, but Nick Shore, does he have an intuition and an understanding-] These guys have got to produce, very simple. He’s played, what, 13 or 14 games? So we need some more. We’ve given him some penalty killing stuff to try and keep his minutes up. He’s a smart player, but we’re going to need more – clearly we need more as we go forward if we want to be a playoff team. I don’t spend a whole lot of time letting marginal minutes players off the hook. They’ve either got it early in the game, or they don’t, and hopefully I made the right decision before the game. [Reporter: Over the games he’s played, what’s he doing well and what’s he not doing well?] Nick Shore? He’s played fine. But you’ve got to be careful who he’s out on the ice against. At home it’s easier. On the road it’ll be a bigger challenge. He’s struggled on the road against top players.

On strong work by the power play on Tuesday night:
Power plays run hot and cold. Could’ve had four goals last night. We changed it up a little bit, put some different guys in places that we wanted them to see if it would help. Justin has been historically a good power play player, and we’ve sort of not been using him there just because of the way it’s set up. Muzz has been having drouble getting pucks through to the net, so last night he got one through to the net and Willie tipped it in. It’s a little different for our power play, obviously. Again, it goes back to not having Voynov on it. It takes a lot of that away. At the end of the day, we shouldn’t be defending a one-nothing lead late in the game. We had five or six [high quality chances]. It comes to mind Gabby, Kopi had for sure four great opportunities, two-on-ones. Got to finish. It’s tough to win one-nothing. You know what? They’re two of the best teams in the league at negating quality chances and odd-man rushes against. I’d say the biggest reason our team has played better lately, it’s got nothing to do with power play or anything like that. There are no odd-man rushes against. Give this the odd-man rushes against, you should score and you’re going to score.

On “the right point position” on the power play without Slava Voynov available:
The right point position? Drew Doughty’s a right point position guy. I like Drew Doughty. We need two guys.

On Kyle Clifford (stick tap to Lisa Dillman):
I think there’s still a big upside. He’s a guy who wants to improve and will improve. He’s got a great work ethic and he’s really been an important part of playing his role on our team, which you need on a good team. And he wants to play a bigger role. You forget how young he is. He’ll play a bigger role as he continues to improve. I’m glad he doesn’t have to look at it where he is thinking about his contract this summer. He’s got a young family. I’m happy for him.