October 6 practice quotes: John Stevens

On whether he’s ever coached a team where three players made NHL debuts in the same game:
I’m not sure. I have to go back and check. I’ve had lots of young players in the lineup. Whether they all made their debut together or not, I’m not sure. But I’ve had lots of young players, for sure. [Reporter: Did they acquit themselves fairly well as far as opening night, the first game, and all that?] I think it’s all different. I mean, depending on each guy’s situation, I thought Iafallo came in and continued to do the things that we’ve been impressed with his ability to do. He’s tenacious on the puck, responsible. Made some pretty high-end skill plays there, especially the one play to Kopi, but he does a lot of really good things. Especially the guys on the back end, you see a guy like MacDermid steepped in and I thought played solid for us. Fantenberg, even though he’s older and he’s got experience playing at a high level overseas, this is his first opportunity here. I thought he settled in and played a pretty solid game for us. Overall, I thought it was pretty good. [Reporter: It’s a hell of a pass by Iafallo, wasn’t it?] Yeah, it’s a high-end play by a kid. I think if you looked at the play he made defensively where he got a stick on a puck and kind of disrupted things and was able to keep his speed, and then having the presence of mind to hunt down a puck and get a puck over the top of a defender, it was just a great all-around play. I think if you get that play in 10 times, it’s probably got a 70% chance of going in, maybe higher. [Reporter: Kopi got robbed on that one, didn’t he?] I like to the see that. You know what? That’s a good play, a good opportunity. Those are things we want to see – opportunities created around the net, getting to the right spots. Those pucks are going to go in for him, provided he keeps getting to those pucks.

On the difference between having Jonathan Quick in net and not having him available:
It’s hard to put a figure quantifying leadership, but I think just his presence in the room, he’s got a real calming effect. I think it really shows in the penalty kill situation. I think you’re going to trust him to take care of certain things. You’re going to give up something on the PK. He knows what he’s responsible for. I think that allows you guys to settle down, and I think it allows you to be more aggressive. I thought last night he just managed the game really well. He got whistles when we needed whistles, he steered pucks away from traffic coming to the net, and I just think he had a real calming force on your hockey team, especially when you get some young guys into the lineup. Again, I don’t think you can measure that, but you can certainly feel it.

On whether there was too much special teams play last night:
I think it’s what we’ve come to expect a little bit, certainly in the third period. But I think those plays in the third period, I mentioned it last night, I think we’ve got to clean up our neutral zone a little bit in terms of managing the puck. It put us in those situations where we end up taking penalties, but we’d like to stay out of the box. We’ve always put a big focus on playing hard but not taking penalties, and I think I think its enforced with the new rules. I don’t think we saw a whole lot of that last night where the penalties were a byproduct of the enforcement of the new rules. I think the penalties would’ve been penalties last year, so we can certainly clean that up.

On whether the absence of Adrian Kempe’s line in the third period was a reflection of relying more on other lines:
No, I think it’s just that that’ll be earned throughout the hockey game. I thought there were times when we were in our own zone when we got in trouble, and that line, specifically, had some trouble managing the puck in the neutral zone, so that’s the reason they didn’t play as much in the third.

-Lead photo via Aaron Poole/NHLI