January 31 morning skate quotes: Darryl Sutter

On the Boston Bruins:
They play a very similar game to ours. I think everybody’s held accountable and has a really good two-way game. I think there’s some difference in their personnel from the last time we played ‘em, as with ours. I think there quite a few guys who were out with injuries from both teams last time, or different.

On how Drew Doughty has handled the extra ice time:
Well, he’s had to do it right from Day 1. So we’re 40-something days in, and he’s still performing at a high level, so I would say he’s handling it pretty well.

On the Bruins using three forwards and one defenseman in overtime:
We’ve done it also. We’ve used Kopi and Gabby and Jeff and Drew a lot to start. We haven’t had much success with it, but it gives the guys a fresh look once in a while, and what are the adjustments the other team has to make? It’s pretty much a man-up situation, four-on-four, anyways, if the other team has the puck here. It’s still pretty much D-forwards, forwards-D coverage…it’s kind of a nice look, though, to see all of those guys on the ice. [Reporter: So you’re not doing it to avoid the shootout? That’s what Claude says why he does it, because he doesn’t want to get into the shootout. Get it decided in overtime.] Yeah, well he’s probably like me. He doesn’t like the shootouts, either.

On Robyn Regehr’s physicality on Wednesday, and whether it’s possible for him to sustain it:
For Robyn? [Reporter: Yeah.] Well, for him to stay in the lineup, he has to. That’s a big part of his game. It doesn’t matter if he’s 23 or 33. If that’s your identity, then you probably have to play that way. Robyn very seldom strays from that. He tries to play that way all the time. He’s a role model. I know I’ve said it enough, but there are defensemen on our team that should follow his lead a little bit for us to try and win some more games.

On whether the AHL move is a “big help” for the organization:
I would think it has to. I think you look at teams – it’s not me seeing them, it’s the organization – and the proximity of the travel for the player, for the most part. You guys know what it’s like here, having the team right here, and most teams other than the west teams have that, when you look at it. It’s important. With the salary cap, if you call a guy up and play him for seven or eight minutes and he gets paid for three days because he’s got to travel across the country two of those days, that’s significant. If you can do it with a drive or after practice – before-the-game-deal – that’s a pretty good way of looking at it.

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.