Sutter `can’t whip them or bury them’

Is there now a philosophy change, in terms of the way the Kings handle practices? Darryl Sutter has yet to hold an optional morning skate — something Terry Murray regularly did — but Sutter said that’s not part of any strict philosophy. In fact, in Winnipeg last week, in a back-to-back situation, Sutter didn’t take the team to the arena at all on the morning of the game, as he opted for only a meeting at the hotel. Every coach has a different outlook on the importance of morning skates and practice time in general. Sutter said he would manage the practice schedule based on timing between games and factors such as that. Going forward, the Kings will practice tomorrow, play Saturday afternoon, practice Sunday, play Monday and then have Tuesday off before returning to practice Wednesday in advance of next Thursday’s game.

SUTTER: “It puts pressure on your team, to be able to handle the mental part of it. As coaches, we have to give them every physical advantage that we can, with schedule. That’s a fact. You can’t whip them or bury them or any of that. That’s sort of the old way of doing it. You can’t do that. So then you have to put trust in them, in terms of the preparation. I believe we can help them with that.’’

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.