November 23 morning skate quotes: Darryl Sutter

On whether he ever has to tell Anze Kopitar to “wait” and not rush back from injury:
He’s only been hurt, since I’ve been here – he missed games with a pec, and I think it was both at the same time, wasn’t it? Oh, last year. He got hit in St. Louis? The year before it was the pec. Him and Gaborik were both out on that long trip, so I don’t think it’s something that I’ve had to talk to him much about. You’re not giving him extra time when they’re medically cleared. Then they should be in shape to play.

On the Jordan Nolan – Jared Boll fight:
It’s both of their jobs. They’re both trying to stay in the lineup. They’re still in our division. It’s still very much Anaheim has it, Edmonton has it, San Jose has it. They’re first, second and third in the division, so we better be able to keep with that. It’s still there.

On getting quality practice time in during a less compacted part of the schedule:
We’ll get some good practices in, but because we’re in at the end of the month here, the mandatory four days off, the guys are getting three days here this week. They got the day before, they get tomorrow, and then I forget which day – either Sunday or Monday, I can’t remember. It’s just the way it worked. The way the schedule was, we just couldn’t make it work for the guys, and I wanted them to get their rest, so the challenge is for them to handle the focus and the preparation and all that in terms of playing the games. For sure you can talk to your guys every day when you’re traveling and on the trips and that. You can talk about situations or ‘lets do this’ or show ‘em on video. Remember, we learn, always learn it three different ways: seeing it and hearing it and doing it. We can see it on video and we can hear it from our locker room – the meetings – but doing it is also a big part of how we all learn. Hey, we’re trying to give ‘em the proper rest but at the same time giving ‘em the proper attention, too. [Reporter: Part of what makes it a better time in the schedule is guys that have been injured to come in and actually get into some practices.] I agree, Daryl. I think if you look at Gaborik yesterday, he’s been skating with the team – morning skates and things like that – but we haven’t had a really game situations practice until yesterday, so really that was his first game situation practice. Same with Andy. It doesn’t matter when you’re cleared. You’ve got to be game-ready. [Reporter: That’s the battle for position and physical battle, things like that.] Yeah, it’s just the game situations. You can practice all you want, but it’s like that horse out on the track. He can run by himself in the mornings, but when he runs with seven or eight other ones, coming around the corner it ain’t just like a straight line.

On the ideal number of games in one week:
What everybody always did was three, but it’s obviously quite a bit different now. You’re pretty well looking at it, other than those three breaks this year with the extra day at Christmas, the five or six-days between games, and the All-Star Break of anywhere from three-to-five days. You’re looking at pretty much an every-other-day deal out west. I think in the east it’s probably a little different.

On how Andy Andreoff and Marian Gaborik fared in the game situations:
Well, they’re not ready to play, or else they would be playing. [Reporter: I know they have the IR designation, but is Andreoff first?] They’re different-type players, so that’s not really a fair evaluation for either one. [Reporter: I guess the question would be if they’re both close to returning.] They’re both on IR. Really, they’re not ready.

On the New York Islanders:
Yeah, I think they have two really skilled lines, and obviously Taveras is world-class. Playing really well. I watched them, I think two really hard-working lines. The left side of their defense is really mobile and Boychuk and Hamonic are really strong, physical guys. They’re a good balance. I think right now with them is I think they’re 6-8-4, so if that was a two, and it was 8-8, it would be a big difference. If you look at their last … 11 games or whatever it is, there are only two or three L’s in there. They’re mostly O’s and W’s. It’s a fine line. I mean, you get caught up in ‘oh, they lost three or four in a row,’ it’s really not true. You get points.

On Thomas Hickey’s controversial shootout goal against Anaheim last night:
They don’t show a replay. If the puck stays on his stick, that’s a goal. If the puck doesn’t stay on his stick, that’s not a goal. We don’t see either one, so the team that gets scored on is going to say the puck was not on his stick, and the team that does score says the puck’s on his stick. You can do that. Puck’s on your stick? Goes in? That’s a goal. But if the puck goes off your stick, you push the pad, it’s not a goal. It’s not that hard to figure out, but we’d never seen it. You don’t see that, right, because it’s from there and the play’s there. You never see the puck and you never see his stick, so you don’t know. If that’s a breakaway in a game and the puck stays on his stick, goes in the net, that’s a goal, so that shouldn’t be any different than if it goes in his pads and then he shoves his pad, then it’s not a goal. It’s pretty clear what the call is, just we didn’t have the replay obviously that Toronto had.