March 14 practice notes: Mindset when facing teams lower in standings

After a Monday recovery day, the Reign took the ice at Tuesday’s Center Ice practice rink for just over an hour’s worth of work. Here’s a very short post with more to come the rest of the week.

–When the Reign (30-17-9-0, .616 winning percentage) play at Charlotte (28-27-4-0, .508) this Friday and Saturday and then host San Antonio (23-32-4-1, .425) the following weekend, they will be facing two opponents in their next four games who are currently outside the playoff picture. The Rampage in particular are last in the Pacific and ranked 27th out of 30 teams. But head coach Mike Stothers doesn’t put any extra emphasis — of any kind — in the Reign needing to be wins over teams below them in the standings.

“I never approach it of where they are in the standings. That’s mistake number one. Setting yourself up,” he said. “So, we got into it like we go into every opponent and we expect to win every game. Nothing’s going to change. Our goal at the start of the year was whatever team we’re matched up against, we wanted to have a winning record against. Bottom line. If you end up with a winning record against all the teams then you’ll make the playoffs. So our approach is still the same. Have a winning record head to head.”

Of note, injured forward Paul Bissonnette will make the trip to Charlotte (the team leaves on Thursday). More to come on Bissonnette and why even if he doesn’t play, Stothers likes having him on the road.

–The FOX Sports West crew was at practice working on an upcoming Kings Reign Weekly, so stay tuned for that behind-the-scenes airing next Thursday. Interviews were done with players, coaches and more so that will be a must-watch.

FOX Sports West in the house

A post shared by Lindsay Czarnecki (@reigninsider) on

–On the lighter side, Teddy Purcell, a la mite hockey, had a white strip of tape across the front of his helmet with his name and a smiley face on it at the beginning of practice.

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