On how he decides who will play in the exhibition games Sunday:
I think everybody’s playing one of the games, other than Willie and Brown and Quicker.
On Saturday’s scrimmage:
It was a good, fun scrimmage. A lot of guys haven’t had a controlled systems scrimmage. It’s basically what they do in the summer, but they do it in terms of we’re trying to – X’s and O’s and stuff like that.
On Jonathan Quick not playing against Phoenix:
We have seven guys, and we want to make sure Garon and Scrivens and Jones get what they need here in the next three or four. Jonathan doesn’t have to play every game. I need Jonathan for the last – the way we finish preseason, because you finish back-to-back, he’s not going to play both those. So you need him in the middle and towards the end to play probably two or three games, to play the whole game.
On how he evaluates the competition on defense:
Well, if we’re healthy, nobody’s taking Drew’s place. Nobody’s taking Slava’s place. Nobody’s taking Greener’s place. Nobody’s taking Robyn’s place. After that, there’s holes there. There’s boxes that don’t have a name in there yet. So, who’s going to be Drew’s partner? Who’s going to be Slava’s partner? Who’s going to be Greener’s partner, and who’s going to be our seventh guy, and who’s going to be our eighth guy? Because you can’t have nine. [Reporter: So is the thought to start the year with eight defensemen?] I really don’t know that yet. I mean, if you start with eight, then you’re going 13 forwards, so I really don’t know. We’re not to that point yet.
On whether Jake Muzzin has responded well to what was said in his exit meetings:
Muzzin? Well, I don’t like saying, ‘exit meetings.’ Somebody made that up a few years ago. It never used to be ‘exit meetings.’ [Reporter: What were they called back then?] End of the season review or something like that…[Reporter: Walking papers?] See ya. Here’s the exit. Like that’s what I don’t like. I don’t like that. But with Jake, I didn’t know Jake Muzzin at all, and he was a guy that had probably been fast forwarded before earning his stripes, and I don’t think he was really too thrilled with having to go earn his stripes after he played here…three or four years ago, and I don’t think that he was prepared to be a NHL player physically or mentally, and that’s what I want him to improve on. So we’re going to find out in the next three weeks that he did. [Reporter: He felt – at least by his own admission – that maybe he was a deer in headlights a few times during the playoffs. Is that sort of the same thing that you’re saying, that at the end of the season, that maybe he wasn’t quite ready for battle?] Well, it’s good that we made the playoffs so he got an opportunity to play in a few games, right? Because the only way you can understand that is if you experience it. So he basically got two seasons in last year. He got regular season, where we weren’t sure whether he could play on our team or not, and we worked with him, and he worked to the point where with the injuries that we were playing him 20 minutes, kind of watching who he was playing against, and once playoffs started, it’s a whole different deal, right? You coach different once playoffs start. So his ice time went down, and at times he was not dressed. That tells you the whole learning part of it. So he talked about it. He said at the end of the year about how much more ramped up it was at playoff time. So that meant that he understood it.
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