Sutter postgame quotes (Dec. 31)

Darryl Sutter’s postgame thoughts…

(on whether this was the Kings’ best game with him as coach…)
SUTTER: “I think we’ve been playing pretty good. If you got a chance to watch the Chicago game or the Winnipeg game, there’s a lot of steps that we’ve tried to make. Tonight we got contributions from different guys, which was really good.’’

(on Kopitar breaking his scoring drought…)
SUTTER: “He scored a big goal, so that makes him feel good again, because he’s been struggling to score. He’s getting lots of shots, and we’ve been trying to reinforce to keep shooting. Really, we had two or three of those plays. Mike Richards had that same type of play. I thought Stoll’s line had a lot of those opportunities as well, and the kids, Lokti’s line, they were all good. Hey, if we don’t play that way, they’re going to kick your (butt), quite honest.’’

(on the Kings buying in, on the penalty kill…)
SUTTER: “Well, that really doesn’t have much to do with me. The penalty killing itself has been what’s kept them in it this year. That had nothing to do with me. That’s a commitment from some really diligent penalty-killers.’’

(on trying to play a faster, more aggressive game…)
SUTTER: “We’re just trying to get everybody to do that. It can’t be hit and miss. We need everybody to do it. We all have different levels and skill sets. If you can all try and do that little bit more of a push, then we can all play at a higher level.’’

(on whether he might keep Richards with Kopitar and Brown…)

SUTTER: “We’ve talked about it. Lokti, somebody asked the day before yesterday about how Lokti prefers to play center, but he has to do what we want him to do as a centerman. You know what, I trust that they’re going to do that. It’s easy to switch guys around. Lokti, Colin Fraser, Brad Richardson. Tonight, there was a lot more of using three as a group than probably in any other game we’ve done.’’

(on breaking the power-play drought…)
SUTTER: “I never really thought about it like that. We were playing three lines on the power play. That’s my only focus. Those five guys, the Stoll line, Mitchell and Voynov, were pretty good 5-on-5, and they play the power play as if it is 5-on-5. It wasn’t a fancy play. It was, win the battle in the corner, cycle the puck. Slava gets somebody going to the net, and screen, tip, rebound.’’