November 6 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On adjustments to the team’s lines:
We did on the Chicago trip, too, and then Kopi got hurt in St. Louis, too, and we moved those guys around. I’m not really set on anything.

On whether Matt Greene is “ready”:
I don’t think so. He hasn’t had any contact yet. I think today was probably his first game-drills, but I still don’t think contact. [Reporter: He was with Ehrhoff for part of the practice. Should we read anything into that?] No. Not really. Trying to get Marty all over. Our defense had a tough night last night. [Reporter: Is that something you saw during the game, or confirmed afterwards?] No, saw it the second shift in. [Reporter: What about it do you think made it so tough for them? Is it just the fatigue of so many games in such a short time span?] No, I think if one guy’s having a tough night, it tends to go through the rest of ‘em. Don’t have a choice. When you’re playing three-in-four, Drew still gets more than anybody, but you’ve got to be able to use six defensemen, and two of them really had a rough night last night.

On whether an early bad shift is indicative of whether a player is going to have an off-night:
Well, if you’re a defenseman, the game is about moving the puck and competing in your own zone. That is criteria of a defensemen now, so you’ve got to be able to move the puck, and you’ve got to compete in your own zone. So if you’re not competing in your own zone and you get scored on, how does that affect your game? In today’s game, usually you lose. That’s why we lost last night.

On Dustin Brown:
He’s continuing to work hard. I want him to play a more complete game. It’s not about scoring. We know he’s struggled to score the last couple years, but there’s a lot more to it. He’s got to play a complete game. Got to have an identity. I don’t want to talk about it, because yesterday when I talked about it somebody said I was criticizing Dustin Brown. I’m not criticizing Dustin Brown. I mean, for us Dustin Brown has to be a good player. You’ve got to be a complete player. You’ve got to be able to check and you’ve got to be able responsible defensively and you’ve got to be able to play in three zones, you’ve got to be good on the boards. If you’re not good in those areas, then generally you’re not going to get rewarded around the net because you’re not going to be there enough.

On Tanner Pearson having “picked it up”:
Yep. He was a game-time decision in St. Louis, and hopefully that woke him up. [Reporter: Talking to him, he seems to ‘get it’ in the sense that he’s got to start checking, and it’s got to come from there.] He’s got to check. There’s only a handful of guys in the league that get away now with not checking. I won’t say who they are, but they’re easy to pick up, and they go in and out of the lineup and one year they score 40 goals and then the next year they score two and I think that they don’t play on good teams, and we don’t want any of our players to be like that. It’s like when you’re talking about the players that you’re talking about now. If it’s only based on scoring, then you’re still not on a good team. I mean, they have to be able to play the whole game. That’s why there’s boards on the ice and why there’s blue lines and red lines, so that players learn to play in those areas. In the St. Louis game, you’re talking about Tanner, well, Tanner and Lewie and Shore were our best line, and they checked, which means that they’re on the ice – you don’t get the match-up that you want – but they’ve got to play against top guys. So either they can or they can’t. You’regoing to say, ‘oh, it was a young guy who got to play against David Backes’ or ‘got to play against Tarasenko or Lehtera, that’s all right.’ No it’s not. You’ve got to beat ‘em. That’s what you want ‘em to do.