On Chris Chelios looking like he’s in playing shape:
I’m sure he’d tell you that, too.
On Drew Doughty’s absence from the morning skate:
It’s optional. I told them all to go, they bitched. I told them none of them had to go, so they all go.
On the Kings leading the league in faceoff percentage since Thanksgiving:
It probably goes game-by-game. What is it, 49-to-55 in the league? In school, that’s failing. It’s the worst stat in hockey. There’s nine different dots, nine different situations, three-on-three, four-on-four, four-on-five, five-on-four, lefty-versus-righty, righty-versus-lefty, forehand, backhand. So if you want to take something out of it, go ahead. It means absolutely nothing to me. It means based on the last game or good faceoff guys. We get some guys that win a lot and some guys that’ve never won. It takes ice time away from players, it gives players more ice time, some of it’s whether you dress or not. Lots goes into it. [Reporter: Do you break down that data in terms of faceoffs?] Absolutely. It’s critical, especially when you go out of conference – guys that you’re not familiar with with a lot of the players, so you break it down, look at it a lot. For example, the last game we played, who are their centermen, if it’s so important? [Reporter: O’Reilly.] [Reporter: Jack Eichel.] Just a question. If you’re going to ask that question, you should know, right? Okposo takes a lot of power play faceoffs. We’ve got guys that can’t beat Okposo. Got to have that figured out. [Reporter: I’ve noticed Wash does that with their wingers on the power play, too, just because they don’t want ‘em moving around too much.] There are guys over the years, hey, guys who can win in certain situations. A=If you look again, when you take a lot of faceoffs, power play, things like that. It’s how guys get on the power play, too. [Reporter: So the overall faceoff percentage does nothing for you?] It’s like the special teams ones, too. It’s the totals that matter, not the percentages. The percentages in those areas are from the dinosaur age.
On Alec Martinez having seen the Cup-clinching game at Joe Louis Arena with his father in 1997:
They probably have memories of not NHL memories. … I would bet Marty, those kids probably played here in some sort of tournaments.
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