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No meltdowns as ice conditions scuttle practice

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Because of what was described as a “building maintenance issue,” the on-ice portion of the Kings’ Monday practice was canceled.

The ice conditions at Toyota Sports Center:

For those keeping track, this is the second day that the Kings have had had to kibosh a practice because of ice issues.

For Darryl Sutter, the cancellation was frustrating “in the sense that you wanted a theme for the week.”

“You have things you could’ve worked on today that wouldn’t necessarily require work but require you to be on the ice. It’s disappointing. It’s twice now we’ve been down in the last two weeks,” he said.

Because the Kings and Ontario Reign will be taking part in a charity golf tournament benefiting the Kings Care Foundation on Tuesday, there won’t be any on-ice activity until Wednesday morning.

Though Sutter was still satisfied that the team got through a good workout in the team’s facility, there was the missed opportunity to get several players on the mend an opportunity to skate while affording players who play fewer minutes the chance to get full days on the ice.

“Two days would’ve been good for them,” he said. “They wouldn’t be able to golf tomorrow, and it would’ve gotten them two full days. Some of them would’ve skated, but as I said a couple of days ago, there are a couple of guys who aren’t playing very much that very clearly need to upgrade their game by their practice habits and their repetitions.”

The club didn’t learn about the ice conditions until it was too late to search for an alternate practice site.

“I even checked early this morning,” Sutter said. “I checked Staples to see, but there’s a preseason game there. There’s actually been quite a few open days down there, when you look at their schedule. If we’d have known last night, it probably could’ve gone a little different.”

He was still able to maintain a cool head and a sense of humor over instead of, well, melting down.

“It’s something that’s out of your control, and we’ve struggled with ice issues here during training camp, quite honest, so hopefully this’ll spur it on a little,” he said.

“That’s OK. [The players are] going to look back at it and say, ‘We had that two day break.’”

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