February 15 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On returning to practice after five days off:
I think guys are trying to get dialed in again. It’s good to get a good practice. [Reporter: With having the chance to skate the way you did this time, will you guys skate again as a group tomorrow or will you go optional?] We’ll talk about it. I really haven’t thought about it yet. [Reporter: Is there any fear of too much rest when you get a break like that?] It’s no different – we had the three or four at Christmas and then the three or four at All-Star. There are always guys that relish it and handle it very well, and there’s always three or four that you’ve got to really watch for and kind of have your eyes on ‘em. I know lots has been made about the five or six-day break, well, everybody’s got it, and if you check records, there’s been some issues with it. [Reporter: Do you think it’s more a physical issue or a mental issue coming back from break?] Well, I don’t know about other teams, but I know with ours, I was hoping to have some injured guys in particular, you want some guys that may have been playing banged up, what do you give them, two or three days, and then somebody like Quick, you’ve got to give him another five or six days. Is it mental or physical? I’ve seen young guys not handle it very well, and the guys that are used to winning and your leadership guys are always pretty good about it. I’ve seen at times this year, quite honest, those young players would’ve handled it better based on the fact that they’re coming off in their past college schedules or weekend schedules, the same amount of time, or on the Ontario schedule where you can go five or six days. Without being critical, I’m disappointed in some of those players.

On whether he’s looking forward to seeing Adrian Kempe in NHL action:
Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing him. You know what? We need some speed in our lineup, I think. Put Kopi in a spot again. Another winger. He’s gone through a lot of them this year. [Reporter: What kind of reports did you have on Kempe from Ontario?] I’ve seen him a little bit. Seen him in preseason. I don’t think it’s changed much. He hasn’t had a great year down year. He had a good trining camp. We’ll see. We have a few games at home here. We’re in a tight schedule, so we’ll see.

On whether the dressing room gets a boost when it sees Jonathan Quick practicing:
He’s been with us for a week or a couple weeks on the ice. I think he was with us for a game at home and then four on the trip. As I said, I’m glad he’s practicing, but I’m interested in when he’s ready to play now. Anything on than what anybody else is going on, the players don’t get a boost either until the player plays.

On the remaining schedule, and what he’d like to see the team take from it:
We have about a third of the year left. We have 17 at home, we have 10 on the road, we have 15 in division, we have six back-to-backs, we have a four-day break again after March 1, you have 10 games until then, you have two at home, two on the road, two at home, so I can break it down. I can give it to you 25 different ways. What are you looking for? You’re trying to go 27-0, that would be my assessment of it. If you do that, we’re guaranteed a playoff spot. [Reporter: What about maybe your special teams? You feel like the penalty kill is in a good spot right now? Power play, are you happy with where that’s at? The defensive part of the game, the offensive part of the game.] I think your special teams go up and down through the year. I think what we’ve done a good job of this year is staying out of the penalty box. It seems like every other year we’ve had to reset that. Last year it was an issue, our defensemen were all at the top of the league in terms of taking minor penalties. This year we’re way better at that, so that’s reflected in our penalty killing. You’re not killing as much. Our power play has gone up and down. A lot to do with injuries – Gaborik, Toffoli, things like that. I think defensively our goal is to stay in the race after Quick got hurt and we’ve managed to do that. We give up the fewest shots in the league. I intend to continue that. We’d like to score some more goals. We have guys who play a lot that haven’t scored many goals, so that’s why we’re looking at Adrian now. Same path. Stay the course.

On how Peter Budaj’s game has developed:
We start tomorrow. Let’s see how he plays tomorrow. I’m not interested in talking about one player. The goalie is as good as the team in front of him. The team in front of him is as good as the two goalies behind them. So again, you need two goalies here. If we’re just hanging on to a playoff spot now, we need the other goalies both to be really good every game, and that’s really clear. If you look around the league, that’s really clear. In fact, if you watched our last game – did you? [Reporter: Missed the last one.] So you can’t talk to me about it, because if you’d have watched the last game, you’d have seen a team coming off the break that used both goalies. Neither one of them, I’m sure their coaches or team sat there, did enough. I watched another team that used both goalies several times during their game after the break. The same game. So you just need one good one, not two bad ones. When we have one good one, we have a chance to win and usually do.