January 16 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On what he likes about Nick Shore:
I think in the two years that I’ve seen him, obviously he came and spent part of that…lockout year…[with us], so you got to know him then. Not as a player, but you got to know him…I got to know him as a person, not as a player that little bit, and then last year in training camp, his first real training [camp], he had a really good training camp. That’s when everybody was talking about Linden and Tanner and Tyler, and actually we, as coaches, thought that he had a better camp than those guys. Just the organization, what Dean does, and it’s the right way to do it, is to keep those kids a little longer and send him down, and that’s what we did. And then this year, I didn’t think his camp was quite as good, but we played him more is what we did. We kept him longer, and that was part of the thing. We wanted to play him more so that it was just sort of helping his development. He went down, and hey, he’s put up really good numbers. [Reporter: Did you watch any of his tape from down there, Darryl?] Not just specifically on him. Just watching the team. I mean, when everybody’s in the lineup, it’s a pretty skilled two lines. They’re able to use him in a lot of, obviously, offensive situations and power plays and things like that. I think the biggest thing with him is hey…it doesn’t matter what you do at the American League level. It’s a whole different deal here, and I’ve said this before, I just don’t like putting a guy in and having him play seven or eight minutes. There’s not much of a point unless he’s just strictly a role player. So he’s a guy, he’s probably going to have to not just stick his toes in, he’s going to have to jump in, show us what he’s got. That’s when I’ll be able to say more about him.

On Tyler Toffoli, who “looks healthy”:
Yeah, he looks good and he feels good. Is today Friday? He did his blood work yesterday, and then he’ll do the – I don’t know what it’s called, I think it’s ultrasound, maybe, or something like that – and then they’ll know more. [Reporter: When is he scheduled for that? The next ultrasound?] It’s today. I think blood work yesterday, and that today. [Reporter: So, assuming things are in the right track-] I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know how that works.

On Robyn Regehr “coming along”:
Yeah, I mean, I was hoping he would be ready for tomorrow, and I don’t know. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. He’s better every day, and he’s fully cleared, so he’s been practicing all his game situations now, so I guess it’s whether he feels he’s ready.

On balancing his team wanting to watch Rob Blake’s ceremony while preparing for the game:
Yeah, I’m sure they want to. You can tell they really respect him, and he’s not far enough removed from the game that they can’t remember him. There are some of the ceremonies and things that go on around the league that the players don’t remember those guys. If you ask them, they don’t even remember them playing. I remember asking Brad Stuart once against Gary Suter. He thought he was my brother. ‘Stu, you’re from Rocky Mountain House. Sutes played in Calgary.’ It’s like, how could you not know him? [Reporter: It’s funny what guys know and what they don’t know.] It’ll be good. I think it’s good. It’ll be really good. It’ll be done right and it won’t be over the top. It’ll be done right.