October 8 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On whether it was a “fluke” that road teams won all four games yesterday:
I don’t know. I really spent most of my night and morning watching our team. I didn’t watch the other three. [Reporter: Is it something about home openers-] Well, you know, it’s got to be hard for Chicago last night. We did that twice, and it’s hard, and the players tell you after, too. I didn’t see any of the Calgary game or … Montreal. Yeah, I watched some of that. It was actually a pretty good game. Seen a review last night. Goal taken away, and it was the right call. They couldn’t see it, but it was actually a stick in the- [Reporter: Are you looking forward to challenging them?] I mean, if they tell us it’s the wrong call, then we’ll challenge it. Am I looking forward to it? You hope you never have to, right? You hope it’s always the right call. I think the goaltender interference one is still exactly what they’ve said/ Most of it is still going to be decided by the official. They’re going to look at it and say, ‘was it intentional, or was it not,’ and they’re still going to rule that way. Not everybody’s going to agree with it. [Reporter: So if they tell you to challenge, it won’t matter how early in the game it is?] No. If it’s a goal or not a goal, time shouldn’t matter. It’s important. Just think last night even – any of the goals that make it two-one or three-one, if those were challengeable goals, you should, because they’re turning points in the game. A two-goal lead’s a pretty good lead.

On whether he was looking for “more” from Brayden McNabb in training camp:
More? Yeah, play better. He had a tough camp. [Reporter: What aspects, what details?] I think the defenseman’s checking, physical game, identity, all those things. [Reporter: Typical things for a young player, finding that identity, that role?] It’s the NHL. You know what? Brady’ll come around and play and play well for us, but he was out-played in training camp by guys who played last night. That’s what training camp’s for.

On special teams challenges:
Yeah penalty killing was primarily related to two clean faceoff losses. One was scored 14 seconds after, and it was an easy goal – the one Pavelski tipped – but Ehrhoff could’ve clearly made a better play in front of the net on that. The second goal was the faceoff comes all the way around- [Reporter: The screen?] The screen goal, yeah. Instead of it being a screen, we could’ve knocked that shot down. Part of killing penalties is the shot blocking part of it. The power play … half our scoring chances came on the power play last night, and we didn’t score. If you look at Carter from the side, shot block, Kopi from the side, had a good shot. Tyler had a good one. … Score on one of ‘em, right? And the five-on-three, you need some net. We had really good looks, but one of the forwards that’s off to the side has to come to the front. You’ve got to score on those chances tomorrow. Still got to be in a shooting mindset, because I think as it went along last night, both our power play groups were in a shooting mindset, then we didn’t get it through. Penalty killing’s also related too. There’s an interference penalty – that would’ve been Ehrhoff. Marty, what was his penalty? [Reporters: Holding.] I didn’t get a good look – I asked Shoresy, and he wasn’t sure either – if he covered it or not. He said he couldn’t tell. He said it was going so fast, he said, ‘I was just trying to push it.’ So he wasn’t sure, either. At the end of the day, you’re getting into too many. I mean, even where we had a choice of going down five-on-three, or five-on-four for four minutes, that’s still two more to kill. That’s a lot of time against a team that’s got as good of five guys as you could put on the ice.

On a string of poor home openers:
Yeah, you know, we had a good start last night. That wasn’t bad at all. It was just we didn’t get much out of the top end of our lineup at all. You look at what they got and what we didn’t get, that’s the difference in the game.