October 14 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On whether Matt Greene was taking a maintenance day:
Yeah, it’s all related, but it’s maintenance, yeah. [Reporter: Do you expect him to be a couple days?] Hopefully he’ll practice tomorrow. We’ll just see.

On whether the current approach to turn things around is similar to the approach after falling behind 3-0 to San Jose in 2014:
I really haven’t thought of that. I think it would be quite a bit different. Our problem is we haven’t scored any goals. We’ve scored one even strength goal and one shorthanded goal this year, and if you go back through training camp, we liked our team’s training camp, but at the same time, the guys that want to score and need to score didn’t have much success in the preseason, either, and that part is carrying into the regular season. We’ve got to help them as coaches with that and get more out of ‘em, for sure. [Reporter: I guess, to follow up, then, have you ever had then, in your coaching career, coming off a preseason – because you said it was a good camp, a good feel, and then-] I really don’t have any idea how to look at it like that. I couldn’t remember much about preseason, ever, to tell you the truth.

On the technical issues behind the team’s slow start:
Well, I think the power play’s not going to win or – it’s has zero impact on anything, other than if guys aren’t consistently producing offensively. I mean, that’s where it becomes highlighted. So if they’re not doing it five-on-five, they’re probably not going to do it on the power play, if you look at it. As I’ve said, we’ve scored two goals this year. One is a deflection – Brown shot, Shore tip. Carter shot, Toffoli rebound, shorthanded. We’ve got to work on that in these couple days. It’s tough to score in this league. There’s no freebies, very few lucky ones. They’re mostly about work and second and third effort and getting guys in front of the net, things like that, and we have to be much more efficient with that.

On directing shots at the net:
Yeah, we did it again last night, but last night was a lot of misses. Hey, we make a special point to that. We have for three or four years about getting as much as we can at the net and not passing up a shooting opportunity. We’re seeing teams that do a lot of blocking, a lot of knocking pucks down, things like that, so you’ve got to find ways to get through. If you look at the Phoenix game where we had a lot of shots but we also had a lot of blocks, but we got a lot from the back end, and I said it after that game, where a lot of our production was generated from the back, but not enough from up front. Last night’s probably more of the same, quite honest. We need to get more from all that low stuff and all that second and third effort stuff and all that around-the-goalie stuff. You look at a lot of the drills we did today, it was really hard on the goalies. You can’t have be having guys stand in front of the goalie in practice because that’s usually where somebody gets hurt, but you can still have the same affect or impact on what you’re trying to accomplish.

On the conditions of the ice surface at Toyota Sports Center:
It was back, yep. It was better than it was yesterday. It was back to where it was two days ago or three days ago. [Reporter: Was it noticeable at Staples Center? Was there any different condition of the ice at Staples Center?] I don’t know? Was the power out? I couldn’t tell you. [Reporter: Just when it’s warm.] It doesn’t matter, warm. They’re supposed to keep doors closed – that’s an NHL rule – and keep buildings at a certain temperature, so I’m assuming they did.