November 18 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On recollections of Colin Fraser, given his retirement:
Well, I knew him quite a while before the seasons with the club, but probably the one that everybody should remember would be he was on the ice for the last shift when they won the Stanley Cup, and he was the first guy, I think, who jumped Jonathan Quick. He scored a big goal in that series, too, going into New Jersey – the goal on Brodeur from the slot. [Reporter: Just a total character guy. Actually, when did you first meet him?] Playing junior in Red Deer, and he’s actually related to Brent now, through marriage. He’s a winner. Multiple championships everywhere he’s played. He was on probably the most dominant world junior team ever with Jeff and Mike. … He’s a good man.

On whether Nick Shore is doing things to help the team win other than scoring:
The line’s got to produce for us, and they’ve got to be on the ice against other teams’ best lines. If you’re not scoring, you’ve got to check, and that covers the line. [Reporter: The numbers would say that he’s been very good at suppressing the other team’s shots, for however much value that’s put there. But how does that show up to you?] Basically, all that data and stats are based on who our opponent is and more on a game-to-game basis than anything else. I think he’s a good player. If we’re not talking about the line, just about Shoresy, then that third line centerman, he’s got to give you 13-to-15 quality minutes, and if you’re not involved in special teams, then that means even strength. A lot of that analytical stuff comes into even strength areas.

On whether he can pinpoint the turnaround from last year in the team’s road record:
Not really. Two years ago we were an excellent road team and an average home team, so that’s kind of where we are now again. Is there any reason for it? Every game’s different, your schedules are different. If you’re going on anything from last year, we played in Philly last year, just about a year to the day. We didn’t have Kopitar, we didn’t have Gaborik, we played with 11 forwards. We were short-staffed, so you can’t go on that. You can’t base it on much other than we won [last night]. And I said that last year, too. I don’t question effort or any of that stuff on the road. We just weren’t good enough. [Reporter: That’s right. Kopi missed three games, didn’t he? The first three games of that trip?] Gaborik, too.