On whether he’ll use the last change to avoid matching Anze Kopitar’s line against Jay Bouwmeester and Alex Pietrangelo:
“It really didn’t affect us last game at all. I mean, best players play against best players…They’re not really a checking role, and neither are we. Best players are going to play a lot.”
On whether the team is planning on making any changes on defense:
“I mean, it’s a question you always ask, and if I came here early enough, and I was one of you, I would just go and watch the other team skate, and then I’d say, ‘Is Quick starting’ or ‘Is Bernie starting?’”
On the difference between the team’s play at home and on the road:
“We haven’t played in the playoffs yet at home, and we played pretty well in St. Louis and we didn’t win. So we’ll just try it again. There’s really not much difference if you look at ‘em. If everything was based on regular season, then the same teams would do everything every year. You’d win the Stanley Cup every year, and you wouldn’t make the playoffs every year. And you’d lose in the first round every year. We’d win two rounds. Really, when you think about it, I don’t know what bearing it has on anything. The only thing I take out of the regular season against St. Louis is Elliott coming in smoking hot, right? “
On how to get stronger scoring opportunities against Brian Elliott:
“We’ve been limited five-on-five to very few shots. We’ve had some really good scoring chances, especially in overtime, quite honest. Our best chances were in overtime against him. That’s St. Louis’ M.O. I think us and them gave up the fewest shots in the conference. So we have to find ways to get more at the net, because more is better. What’s that commercial with that little girl? ‘More. Can you get less of more, Does anybody want more?’ Just do it by straight stats on the two teams. We’ve had like 50-something shots on net. Three guys have half of ‘em. Brownie, Willie and Jeff have half our shots. So you need to get a little bit more out of everybody.”
On the defense’s challenge of getting shots through:
“Yeah, they’ve out-shot us. I think we’ve had 10 total in two games…Drew’s a key guy in there.”
On how much impact the last change should have:
“On whistles it does. You can’t change on the fly. If you change on the fly in today’s game, you’re chasing – there’s somebody walking down the side, pounding. Both teams see that.”
On whether “must-win” is a phrase he uses:
“I haven’t used it yet. I’ll keep it in mind, though. [Reporter: Along with ‘end of the world?’] Yep. Inspiration. Urgency.”
On the general message to his team:
“Hey, we want to win some matchups, win some one-on-ones. We haven’t done a good job of that. We could be just as easily 2-0, 1-1. Just as easily. So we’ll continue to slug it out.”
On whether the lack of scoring resulted from St. Louis’ play or L.A.’s play:
“I think both…It goes to both quality and percentage. We know full well that five-on-five, it’s tight between both teams. There’s not much going on. It’s basically hard stuff. It’s a hard game.”
On the difference between the first two periods and the final period on Thursday:
“We were too slow in the neutral zone, clearly. It wasn’t just one guy. It was we just got too slow in the neutral zone. Five-on-five, most of it is – there’s a lot of chipping and races to pucks. When you don’t have it to do that, then you end up defending.”
On whether he’d like to see his defensemen jump into the rush more often:
“You’ve got to have the puck to do it. Everybody would like to do that. Barret did it. Ask him. He liked it. Good. I’ve got to watch their practice to see if they’re changing any defensemen.”
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