October 28 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter; injury, personnel notes

A good morning to you, Insiders. Instead of skating this morning, the Kings held off-ice workouts in advance of their flight to St. Louis. Though there wasn’t anything to report from practice, Darryl Sutter did share some interesting bits.

The full quotes are below, but some bullet points:

-Teddy Purcell was a little “banged up” and sick at the end of camp and is at about 90%.
-There’s no change in the status or timeline of Marian Gaborik at this point, nor is there an update yet on Jeff Zatkoff, per Darryl.
-Drew Doughty had a lot of energy against Nashville, which was important in the fourth straight overtime game, circumstances that are taxing on top players. “I thought he was awesome,” Darryl said.
-The division is less forgiving than it had been in recent years.

The quotes:

On Marian Gaborik’s recovery:
He had his three-week when you asked about it last time. [Reporter: On schedule, and all that?] Yeah. Basically got an X-ray and healing, that’s all.

On Jeff Zatkoff’s recovery:
Couldn’t tell you. Haven’t seen him, haven’t talked to him.

On what the team could clean up after Thursday, given his post-game comments:
Not the team, the team was good. Team won, 3-2 and they only gave up two. I think there are guys who could’ve been sharper. I think we’ve played a lot of overtime games lately, and I think some of the guys that played extensively in those overtime games looked a little tired last night. [Reporter: A lot of extra hockey there.] It’s basically, when you go the distance, and when you [inaudible] and almost last night, we had the full penalty, also in that one. That was the shootout game. But if you look at it, Jeff and Kopi and Drew have played most of those overtimes. That’s a lot. I thought Drew had lots of jump last night. I thought he was awesome. I think he really carried our team last night, but I think that – it’s not a criticism at all – I thought Jeff and Kopi were tired. Give ‘em a lot of credit – Kopi, and that penalty kill, was the difference in the game. He loses the draw, but he still blocks two or three shots, and obviously Jeff scores the goal. That gets you another point, so it tells you something about those two guys. [Reporter: Drew was very noticeable. He really did seem to have that jump going.] Yep. He was in full control of his game last night.

On whether he’s content with the team’s depth after seven games:
Depth is only good if you can put it in your lineup and it helps you. Depth is not having extra guys sitting around. [Reporter: No, I meant in terms of the guys that are actually out there contributing. It seems like we’re seeing a little more of that.] I said in training camp, and I’m not going away from it. We’re in a division where you’re going to have to fight like hell to make the playoffs. This is a little bit new for us in terms of staying competitive with the injuries and having to go back to the goalie. It’s a little bit different. We have to evaluate this right on a game-by-game thing. There’s guys, it’s clear, we give ‘em third and fourth line, and we put boys like Setoguchi in who play with really good players. You know what? If somebody’s not producing, then hopefully the guys who are not playing – we talked about Jordie having a really good camp, but his game fell off when we went on the road trip last time, so somebody else went in. Somebody else went in and played good. We took Cliffy out, Cliffy went in and played good. It’s sort of taking advantage of your situation is what we’ve got to do. Teddy got banged up at the end of camp, and then he got sick. He’s still only a 90% guy for us in terms of where he’s at in terms of health, so we need him to get up to speed, and hopefully that pushes somebody else.