April 5 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On whether he prefers it when players are aware of the standings:
My preference? What difference, really, does that make? I mean, everybody looks at the standings every day. I mean, that’s why they’re hockey players. That’s why they’re athletes. I mean, do you think in every sport or any sport they don’t look at the standings? Do you not think in golf, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, that players don’t look at standings? I think every day you look. You’d like to know where you are, don’t you? You’d like to know if you’re last or first, always. [Reporter: It doesn’t change what you have to do on this upcoming road trip, obviously. You have to win – that’s obviously the end goal.] We don’t have to do anything. You don’t ‘have’ to win, do you? … [Reporter: Regardless of the standings, you do have to win on the road trip. It’s a big trip for you guys.] Yeah, we play every game trying to win. What’s bigger about this trip than the last one? … When we went to New York, that’s probably what you said, too. Then we lost in Minnesota and Chicago and we ‘had’ to win there. It’s whatever you think it is. It’s just a game.

On what he liked about the possession and offensive zone time last night:
I think we were able to sustain it. You can get frustrated and get away from it, which is not something that our team does, but you can get frustrated and get away with it and break down. We’d seen that two or three times last night. Colorado’s in a position – they had a lot of urgency in their game, but at the same time, they had two lines with very limited experience or in offense, so you expect to play that way. I mean, you have to play that way. What difference does that make last night? That’s what our game has always been – about possession and trying to play in the other team’s zone. It’s not easy. Hey, you know what? When skating Sekera, he gave us a little bit of more ability on the back end. No we don’t have him, so it’s not easy. [Reporter: Were you getting better looks by forwards carrying the puck into the offensive zone more? Was there anything there?] I thought the Carter line led that, for sure. I think that the Kopitar line had a lot of trouble with that. They didn’t have much in terms of scoring opportunities at all. I thought going into the third, I don’t know if any of them even had a shot on goal. That’s why the score was two-one going into the third period.

On Robyn Regehr settling into Saturday’s game early with several hits:
He takes great pride in it, and he still understands what it takes to be the difference in a game. Two assists is probably a career-high for him, but if you asked him, I bet he wouldn’t even care about that. He cares only about wins and losses. He plays the [inaudible], and he has always done that, even as a young player, he played [in minor and junior hockey], played his role perfectly, in the locker room and on the ice. Those guys, there’s not enough of ‘em in the game, and there’s not enough of ‘em going forward in the game.

On whether it’s exciting that baseball season is starting:
Yeah, it is. Does it start today? [Reporter: Yeah. Dodgers tomorrow. Home opener]. Hopefully they get good weather, all those places that are counting on their openers.