January 20 practice quotes: Darryl Sutter

On the importance of being in a playoff spot at the All-Star Break:
We’ve set goals all along, the way the schedule’s been, of trying to be in a playoff spot at that time. It’s crazy tough how it is. You know what? You can be anywhere from a second or third seed in your division, or you could be in 12th place. That’s how close it is.

On whether there are parallels between last year’s team and this year’s team heading into the All-Star Break:
No. [Reporter: Two totally different teams, obviously.] Yeah. A number of players wouldn’t have been there or had understood that. They just have to keep understanding and listening to what I’m telling them about how tough it is to make the [playoffs]. The train has got to be a work train, not the Stanley Cup train. The Stanley Cup train was last year, and some guys just have to get off that train. There’s no extra for it. You get nothing for it. If it affected your next regular season with the way the transition and your personnel goes, then [at the] start of the year, they should give you points for it.

On whether there’s a “false sense of security”:
Not now, I don’t think, no. I think there have been points with particularly veteran players that there’s been. I mean, you drive the point home about losing a defensemen that you only had for six games, and then you lose two forwards who at the halfway mark are significant players on your team. It falls on the shoulders of not to replace them, it falls on the shoulders of defensemen and wingers to do a little bit more than they’ve done all year.