May 7 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On whether Jeff Carter didn’t skate due to “maintenance”:
No. We did it before last series, too. Jeff and Drew played a lot of hockey this year and played gold medal games, and the more you can give him, the better. He’s not a guy that needs to skate…He does his work off the ice and gets ready.

On whether the extra day is good for Drew Doughty, who had been targeted by Anaheim:
You know, Cam, he’s not really getting extra. I mean, every game he plays he gets extra attention, but I don’t think anybody’s going out of the way to hit Drew Doughty. Drew’s going to play his game. Quite honest, I know I had to answer those questions last game, but they’re a big, physical team. The reason that Drew might get touched more than other guys is because he plays half the game. Quite honest, we need some of our other defensemen to get touched that much.

On what he expects from Anaheim in Game 3, given that they played well at Staples Center:
We played well in their building. I know everybody wants to go back to that about this season, well, you know what? There were two shootout games, and there’s two 2-1 games, and there was the game that we got stuck in the outdoors. It’s a fact. It was the sixth game of an eight-game road trip for us. What you take out of the regular season? The teams are really close. There’s not much either way. You’ve just kind of got to gut your way through it, because they’re hard games.

On ways the Kings can improve in Game 3:
Hopefully lots of ways, but I’m not going to give you that little secret. [Reporter: Some of the guys were mentioning that the forecheck that they have is a little bit tougher than what you saw in the San Jose series. What’s the key with dealing with that, do you think?] I think both teams are strong forechecking teams. All the good teams in the league that are still playing are good forechecking teams. I would say what both teams would be talking about is their ability to not give the other team the puck back. It’s not the ‘forecheck’ part of it. The forecheck can only be if it’s on side, inside your blue line. That’s why they paint the lines on there. Most of the game is played in the neutral zone, so it’s how you manage the puck in the neutral zone. Not just us – them, and everybody that’s still playing.

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