October 22 morning skate quotes: Darryl Sutter

On whether he likes the team’s play over the last two games:
I think other than the first game we’ve played the same way. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. [Reporter: Nothing you haven’t seen them change, though?] No, we’d like to play better. I mean, we’re still only scoring a goal a game or two goals. The difference would be probably one more goal. We need to score another one.

On Derek Forbort:
We need to get more minutes out of him, a more assertive game. It’s the same thing I said – more assertive, more aggressive, more involved. Build an identity. Build your identity in the NHL. If you’re on the roster, then you build the identity. It’s not something that you had four or five years ago. That’s how you build your career. You build it a game at a time. Everybody that signs a pro contract or plays in the NHL has an identity. [Reporter: Is it a little bit of an easier proposition or more straightforward considering he has been in the organization and knows the system, even from Manchester?] He’s only played one year of pro. I don’t think it’s a very normal process, first off, that’s he’s a defenseman. Usually a forward is a little bit ahead of a defenseman, a defenseman’s a little bit ahead of a goalie in terms of their careers when you look at it historically. That’s exactly how it works. He’s got one year under his belt. It’s pretty normal. [Reporter: It’s funny, because the fans have adapted because Doughty is such an extreme – it just doesn’t happen.] That’s a totally different level of a player. If you look at Muzz, Marty, it’s pretty much that same step that you’re trying to get Derek to take. Whether he can take it now or at some point this season, we’ll see. That’s a good way of looking at it. Muzz would be a classic case of a kid who learned the game, turned the pro, learned the game, played American League, and came here and was in and out of the lineup. Learned the game while he was here, but really worked at his game, so that’s what you want from a boy like Derek, to really work at his game, even if he’s not playing. … That’s a classic example of having an American League team in-house or close. It doesn’t mean they’re going to play every game, it doesn’t mean they’re on your roster every game. It’s a good way of doing it.

On what he was happy with over the past week of practice:
We were finding our work ethic again and our identity again. I’ve said it lots about the turnover in our veteran guys because they were really strong identity players – a boy like Jarret, Robyn, Mike – really strong identity players. Really important players. You need guys to step up and assume those responsibilities, especially in the positions that they played. The three most important positions are right up the middle of your ice – goalie, defense and centerman. Right, centerman? [Reporter: Just ask a centerman, and they’ll tell you how important centermen are. Somebody’s got to cover for everyone else’s mistakes, right?] You need four good ones, preferably big, fast ones.

On whether it takes longer to integrate players into a championship-experienced team:
I don’t think so. I think we’ve always been able to integrate guys, if you’d look even at guys who came in – the first couple of guys who came in were Jeff, and then the kids we called up were primarily that. Hey, that’s part of winning championships. You lose guys. It’s part of it. Salary cap and salaries – you lose players, so guys coming in either come through the organization because of the way caps are, entry level players.