Gaborik, Toffoli provided an off-day update

The Kings held off-ice workouts and meetings on a Friday, some 10 hours after arriving home from Vancouver following a 2-0-0 road trip that also took them through Denver, Colorado.

“Going over lots of last night’s game, obviously,” Darryl Sutter said of the off-day schedule. “Lots of treatments, guys doing their off-ice stuff.”

Marian Gaborik and Tyler Toffoli spoke with reporters at the Kings’ facility to discuss the team’s recent play in advance of a game against the Nashville Predators (7:00 p.m. / FOX Sports West) Saturday night at Staples Center.

Marian Gaborik, on continuing the attack Thursday in Vancouver:
Yeah, it’s important. They’re an opportunistic team with a lot of offensive power. So if you give them time and space, they can make you pay and they had some surges. They had chances but Quickie made some great saves, which we need obviously, and he was stellar out there. We just kept going. Scored a big goal by Kopi right away there at the start of the third and then we just kept going and didn’t give them a chance really.

Gaborik, on what has keyed their recent success:
It’s not really a secret, we just had to tune our game up and make sure everybody does their thing. Work on special teams and make sure we use our forecheck, our speed and make sure we work as five guys out there and we’ve been doing that really well lately. So we’ve been working like one machine and just taking it shift by shift.

Gaborik, on how Darryl Sutter balances rest and practice in March:
I think it’s very important, like you said, this time of year to make sure everybody gets what everybody needs. Get some rest on days like this, come in, maybe do a little bit of video, look at your shifts and come in, maybe loosen up a little bit, stretch. Everybody knows what’s at stake, what everybody needs. Every coach is different, but definitely he’s been here for a number of years and he knows what this teams needs and it’s been paying off really good, especially this time of year when you need that rest and we have a lot of games coming down the stretch. Every game is really important, so these days like this are important as well.

Gaborik, on whether the player look at the schedule in segments:
Yeah, we have something like that going on within our group here, as well. So everybody knows what the importance of those segments are. We try to take that game-by-game, but also these segments or series-by-series. We have something like this happening.

Gaborik, on whether he can see the end of the season approaching:
Well, our goal obviously is to make the playoffs and then go from there. There are some big games coming here and also big games on the road. Like I said, we have those segments going on and we want to make sure we hit our goal.

Tyler Toffoli, on being a 20-goal scorer in the NHL:
It was obviously good to score that goal and to be able to score it and get the team going, yesterday it was good. But like you said, right now it’s a team game and we’re trying to focus on winning games. Last night was a really good effort and we’ve got to be ready to play against Nashville [Saturday]. They’re a really good hockey team and I don’t think we’ve beat them yet, so we’ve got to be ready to play.

Toffoli, on what has allowed him and Jeff Carter to find success on the penalty kill:
Yeah, we just try and use our speed and we try not to let them set up. I think the past couple games, we’ve been doing a pretty good job at that. Just have to keep going, keep moving our feet and when we’re putting pressure, I know as power play guys, it’s hard to create anything when you don’t have time to make a play. That’s what we’ve been doing well and we’ve just got to keep going.

Toffoli, on making skilled plays in the offensive zone:
Yeah, you just try and read it and if a play is there, it’s there. [Thursday] night, I just kind of saw him twist the other way and I saw the opportunity and I think I’m obviously playing with a little more confidence than last season and some points this season. But like I said, it’s just hard work. It’s just moving our feet and when we’re moving our feet, we’re making plays and good things are happening.

Toffoli, on whether he looks at the standings:
I think you see it. We have the standings in the room. We know when other teams are winning and other teams are losing, but for the most part we’re just focusing on winning games ourselves. I think if you talked to every single guy in the room, they’re going to say the exact same thing.

Toffoli, on whether the teams’ losing ways are behind them:
I thought when we were losing some of those games, we had some really good games and we just had no luck. I think when we won eight-in-a-row there, we shouldn’t have won a couple games. Quickie played great in a couple of those games and it’s just the way hockey goes sometimes. Right now, we’re playing well. We’re playing with confidence and making those little plays that at some points of the season we were just struggling, we weren’t making.

Toffoli, on the team’s late season play:
I think we just know what’s at stake and we want to make the playoffs and we want to win the Stanley Cup. I think right now, we’re capitalizing on some of our chances. If you look at the third period [Thursday] night, Kopi with that huge goal, we’re scoring big goals at the right time right now.