January 10 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On whether Jeff Carter has “found a groove” since returning from his foot injury:
He’s a good player. I don’t think he’s ‘found it,’ he’s pretty much been like that, other than injuries, since we got him, if you look at it, his consistency in terms of offensive performance.

On Matt Frattin’s physical play, forechecking and near-goals off deflections:
He’s got a good work ethic. He’s finishing checks. He’s trying to give us some energy, so if you’re not scoring, you better do those things, or else you’re out of the lineup.

On Dustin Brown saying he has been feeling better since Christmas:
He’s got to get his game in order, very simple. He’s got to get it in order, what his identity is. His minutes have been down, and it’s affected our team. He’s hopefully preparing for the Olympics to represent his country, and he wants his game in order and as well as the role he plays on our team. [Reporter: What’s your assessment of his game, with two goals in three games?] He’s a role player on our team, and our record since Christmas is reflected on basically how our role players haven’t played very well.

On Jeff Carter’s 10 shots on goal, and whether shots on goal is an “overlooked statistic”:
No, because when you look at Jeff, because he is a goal scorer, at the end of the day his numbers are basically almost a one-in-three ratio, goals-per-game in his career. So you see Jeff, he’ll go five or six games without goals, that’s another thing you’ve seen in his career. What is significant there is because he is such a goal scorer, and he has that feel for where he should be on the ice, and he seizes the opportunity, and when he’s not getting those shots, that’s when his scoring goes down. [Reporter: So with all those shots-] Well, 10 is not a number. I mean, if he doesn’t have 10 tomorrow night, are you going to come to the rink and do an interview the next day, ‘How come Jeff Carter didn’t have 10 shots? You know what? ‘Jeez, Carts only had nine shots. He’s off. He only had nine shots.’ A few things go into it. Number one, Kopitar’s one of the top 10 playmaking centermen in the NHL, clearly. If you get to play with Kopitar, you’re going to get shots and scoring chances. The reason we put Jeff with Kopitar is because the guys over there worked, very simple. And when you refer to the one player, if you play with Kopitar, you better get your chances, because he’s putting you in a position to do it a lot of times, and Jeff Carter does that.