On whether he is still affected by the way last week’s Kings-Flames game ended:
No. We’ve played since then. We’ve had Christmas. Had a great year.
On Drew Doughty being nominated as Canada’s top athlete, and whether he has attributes that are difficult to quantify:
I didn’t know, actually…until we were in Toronto a couple of weeks ago there that he was involved in that, until I was told. We don’t hear much about that. Drew’s a winner. He’s a champion. The bottom line is he wins championships and he shows up every night. Think about even just being nominated last year, he won a gold and a Stanley Cup. At his age – he just turned 25 a couple weeks ago – so at his age the best is yet to come, and hopefully he has a lot more championships in him on the international stage and the National League stage.
On how the Kings prepare for a “shifty” player like Johnny Gaudreau:
Yeah, we have players similar in terms of Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson. One player is not going to win you games other than once in a while a goaltender.
On Mark Giordano’s evolution:
First off, Mark Giordano was a good player right away. He was a player who was hurt as a 19-year-old, and I’m thinking as a 20-year-old too was probably largely why he went undrafted. That’s when those undrafted or unsigned guys were signing that entry level [contract] where it was how they worked. But it was a minimum salary thing, and Gio was good right away. If you look at it at the American League level how good he was right away, and then off his entry level he went to Russia for the one year, and he came back. He’s really, when you look at it, right from the very first time that he played regularly for the Flames, he was a top-four guy. He’s getting recognition now because of numbers, but Gio is the package. He’s a really good player. He’s a dominant player on their team. He’s their best player by a longshot. I know you’re talking about the kid and all that, but take Gio out, and you think what he’s done for T.J. too, in terms of making him a top one-two D in the league.
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