Kopitar “fine;” Sutter didn’t object to hits

It was a mostly quiet day at the Kings’ El Segundo facility on Wednesday as Matt Greene and Derek Forbort skated and the majority of the players on the team conducted off-ice work-outs. Anze Kopitar was among those in the workout room, according to Darryl Sutter, who provided an update on the star center less than 24 hours after he left Los Angeles’ 3-0 win over St. Louis following an offensive zone incident in the first period in which Blues forward Ryan Reaves made contact with Kopitar’s face.

“He’s good. Same as last night. Worked out with the players,” Sutter said. “I really don’t want to talk about that anymore, either, because that’s the story, right? The story was hits and Kopi. So, the hits were fine and Kopi’s fine.”

Speaking of the objections raised towards several hits in Tuesday’s game, Sutter felt it was a din that was much ado about nothing.

“I wasn’t aware of it and you make too big a deal out of it. It’s supposed to be a game of contact,” he said. “I didn’t think anything that you’re referring to, or anything other than what the non-calls were. We heard about it a couple weeks ago with our team. I thought [reporters] were trying to get our players suspended. Anytime there’s an accidental hit or something, it shouldn’t be headlines. We’re going to take it right out of the game, then. We won’t have much fun.”

More from Darryl Sutter’s Wednesday media availability:

On the team’s execution in Tuesday’s game:
We were really good in Chicago and really good in St. Louis. If it was perfect every night, then both teams would win.

On Jhonas Enroth’s two solid performances in goal:
That’s what you need your goalies to do, is come in and give you a chance to win every night. Didn’t have a lot of work, but it was solid. I think he covered pucks, steered pucks, which is important, into areas against a team that’s usually got a lot of net presence, steered pucks away from the net or covered pucks so he’d get whistles, especially after we lost Kopitar so you get to reset a lot. There were a lot of faceoffs in our zone, and he did a good job. There were pucks through traffic that hit him, which is what you want, because there are a lot of times your goalie will get deep in the net and the puck goes in the net. I think he got out and allowed lots to hit him.

On Drew Doughty:
He’s playing better, skating better. I think Brady played better the last two games, also. He struggled going into the Chicago game, the prior two or three before that, and that makes it hard on your partner. We need Drew to be an elite player. Every game we need him to be an elite player with the experience of our defense. I think that Muzz and Drew’s game have elevated in the last three or four, for sure, and now we need for sure Marty to be a real consistent guy and Brayden to play a higher pace.