February 16 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On the Chicago Blackhawks:
“We got ‘em off on the right foot. We take a lot of credit for their success. They have an awesome team. They’re two years removed from winning a championship with that same nucleus, and they’re all healthy. It’s not hard to figure out. Last year they weren’t [healthy]. Now they are. They’re where they are for a good reason. It’s not hard to figure out.”

On how to contain the league-leading Blackhawks:
“Well, they’re not invincible. I mean, somebody’s going to beat them. Somebody just did. So we’d like to try again. They’re not on a different planet than us.”

On his recent evaluation of Mike Richards:
“We’re trying to watch ice time with these guys. Some of these guys, quite honest, didn’t do what they should’ve done in the summer. We’ve had to scale minutes back, and less is more.”

On Jonathan Toews:
“Jonathan last year probably could’ve missed the whole year, right? He’s the captain there for a good reason. There aren’t many guys like him in the league. In terms of success, probably the other guy at his age that’s done the same is Drew Doughty – won all the same things.”

On practicing before traveling to Chicago:
“Obviously, by the time we get on the plane, we’re playing in 24 hours. So it’s not to our advantage, obviously. Originally, it would have been a night game tomorrow. We wouldn’t skate [today]. We could’ve had a morning skate tomorrow. I look at it more as there are some things we have to firm up and clean up. [I] met with players earlier this morning, and got a little sweat on, and away we go.”

On whether he likes to practice before travel:
“It depends what city you’re in. Skate and fly sounds easy, but but when you lose two or three time zones, and you’re on the plane for three and a half hours, it makes it significantly different. It’s not to the teams going west to east’s advantage, for sure. I learned that as a young coach coaching in San Jose. There’s no advantage out here at all, other than New York telling us what time you start in the east. We really like noon starts out here. Like, that’s awesome. We always appreciate that. And this trip’s really good, too. We have two eight o’ clock starts – Edmonton and Calgary . Se we’re getting into one city literally, depending on weather, in the middle of the night.”

On his evaluation of Jonathan Bernier:
“Well, it’s the first time since I’ve been here that he has started two games in a row. I think it was Nick saying last night that it’s the first time he’s started two in a row in a couple years. You know what? [We’ve] got to get them both sharp, simple. The schedule’s going to tell us that we’ll need both guys soon.”

On Jonathan Quick:
“He’s had a really good week. Quite honest, a lot of his issues I take from our coaching staff not doing a good enough job with him – meaning, starting with me. When you have limited practices, limit practice time, you need more quality out of your goaltenders, and I should pay more attention to it during practice…If you look at it when I was disappointed with our goalies in Anaheim, one guy wasn’t mentally ready to come off the bench. One guy wasn’t mentally ready to start the game. So hopefully they’ve made some progress in that in the last week or so.”

On if Bill Ranford has been working with Quick:
“I hope so. I mean, we’ve got two guys to work with.”

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