December 27 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On Tyler Toffoli’s status:
Won’t travel. We’ll get him looked at again early after the new year, so it’ll be at least a week before we even look at him again.

On Brayden McNabb’s status:
He’s medically cleared. I don’t think the (Christmas) break was necessarily in his favor. He wants some full contact practices, so today would be the only one. He’s available. [Reporter: Are you inclined to put him in or wait?] I just think he needs some practice.

On four consecutive division games, and not having traveled yet to Western Canada:
It’s what happens when you play the Eastern Conference seven games. You’re going to run into division games. We go into Vancouver, that’s the one team you only play four times and everybody else you play five, and if you look at it, as you just said, we haven’t been to Edmonton, we don’t play Calgary up there until – I’m not sure. March? … I think now it’s a tough turnaround for us. We’ve just got to make sure we’re focused on ‘it’s not division‘games,’ it’s division ‘game.’

On placing Marian Gaborik, Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown together:
I think with Tyler’s injury we’re going to have to do some adjusting again. I mean, it’s something we’d wanted to do right from training camp with those three guys, and then Gabby got hurt, so we weren’t able to do it. We wanted to have the security of Dustin Brown, but once Gabby got hurt – just really we’ve got to do some ad-libbing again.

On the comfort level of Gaborik, Kopitar and Brown, who’ve played together before:
Yeah, I think they’re refreshed, and they’re three character guys who maybe have different personalities or that, but they’re all real caring guys that have played together. My best memories of that line are obviously in big games. When you look at it, those three guys were pivotal – Gaborik, Kopitar, Brown – we went to it in the last Cup run, I believe. I think in the Anaheim series, maybe. It was a big line for us.