December 18 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On whether there’s any physical or mental fatigue in the current stretch:
A lot, obviously. Just trying to get the reset switch. They’re not machines. [Reporter: Does that pose any significant challenge? Obviously San Jose is coming in tomorrow. How do you look at tomorrow’s game?] We’ll look at it tomorrow.

On whether Kyle Clifford’s absence from the lineup Tuesday was due to a matchup preference:
No, I think fresh bodies – that’s all we’re trying to do. We have 14 active forwards, so we put two in. It’s not a big difference between any of them…When they’re on their game, they all give us something different. It’s kind of what the fourth line did last night.

On whether the condensed schedule makes him manage minutes more, or whether minutes are based more on “game-to-game” circumstances:
Time and score, always. Obviously there’s guys that play more minutes, and it doesn’t it doesn’t sound like much, but when you say that, what do you mean, ‘manage time?’ I mean, sometimes one or two shifts a game is significant for guys, one way or the other. It doesn’t sound like much when you say a ‘seven-minute guy’ or a ‘10-minute guy,’ but that’s a lot. That’s somewhere else for somebody else.

On whether there’s a chance Jonathan Quick could make the post-Christmas road trip:
Not until he’s full practice. I thought he’d be closer than he was, and we’ll just keep going. [Reporter: But when he’s ready, will you carry three in the short term?] I don’t know. You’d have to talk to Dean. I mean, obviously there’s a roster. There’s a 23-man roster. We’re not even into that with Jonathan Quick. He’s got a long ways to go.

On the defense recording 17 shots on goal in Tuesday’s win:
16 more than the game before. I was going around whispering to guys before the game, ‘Shoot the puck.’

On whether there’s a general percentage of shots he’d like to see from the defense:
We try and kind of hook it together. Obviously we’re trying to get the guys who play more in those situations to shoot the puck more. I think Muzzin, Drew obviously. Slava. Martinez. I mean, they should shoot the puck more. The puck’s presented to him. Drew does an awesome job – regardless if he doesn’t get it, he’s still involved in it so much, but the other guys certainly have to have opportunities to shoot pucks more. Even on the power play last night, I think Martinez had chances to shoot pucks, and he was dishing. You’ve got to shoot the puck. It can’t go in the net unless you [shoot]. We’re a pretty good team in getting to the front of the net. I think a lot of our shots last night were generated from that, from our forwards putting the defensemen in position to shoot the puck.

On whether Anze Kopitar is as dominant as he was in the 2012 playoffs:
Every game he’s pretty good. He was a pretty good playoff player in 2013.

On whether “it seems like every night there are two bad hits”:
I watch a lot of games, and I think if you’re referring to every night, I don’t think it’s every night. I think that if you watch a lot of games, it’s not every night. It’s not every game. I’m more concerned about our team. Quite honest, we haven’t had a lot of bad hits. There’s very few hits, period, total. The reason you ask that is because you see highlights, right? So it’s not like you’re watching four games a night. So there’s two games tonight. There’s four teams, so I bet there won’t be any. Our team won’t even talk about it. We talk about doing it the right way and being under sticks and getting angles and trying to turn guys back, and when they do turn back, making sure you’re not hitting numbers. That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s the rules. [Reporter: So isn’t that coaching?] Yeah, I think there’s some discipline in it. Hey, there’s guys that get reduced minutes and don’t dress, quite honest, because of penalties. That’s how I am. A perfect player can be a physical player, but he should have zero penalty minutes. That’s the way the game is now. You don’t have to be looked on as a guy who sits in that little box over there.