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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: KINGS v DEVILSJune 5, 2012Darryl SutterLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Sutter. Q. Couple of your players last night talked about the lift they got watching Matt Greene stick parts of his body in front of Kovalchuk's body. What do you think it meant to your team? COACH SUTTER: Well, I think our penalty killers, as I said after the game, five‑on‑three especially, Jonathan, Willie, Greener and Stollie, then Kopie did an awesome job. Q. Darryl, a lot of your guys have talked about how your strive for perfection has really helped them stay focused throughout this whole thing, despite being 15‑2. Have you noticed that as well, that they're understanding exactly where they are, they're still trying to be perfect? COACH SUTTER: Well, we have to be. They have to understand where they are. Playoffs have been from a straight standpoint, a scheduling standpoint, really disjointed. You look at the time off we've had, which is not normal between series, then the way the series have been broken up, even the start of the finals. When you go Wednesday/Saturday. We were in New Jersey for five days and played one game. You have to be able to stay in a zone or focused. If you don't, you're in trouble. Just 'cause you win, I said it several times, it doesn't mean you played great or you played perfect. We won two games in overtime 2‑1. If you lost one of them or lost them both, you're still looking at a huge battle. Last night, I look at it real simply. We took a couple penalties in our own zone, an elbowing and a holding. Carts, they're going to call that automatic, the four minutes. We ain't gonna get no call. Brodeur got a call last night and Quick did. We're not going to get one. Those are the challenges that we face. Hey, we could have easily been down 2‑0 before we scored a goal last night. We could say we played hard. Q. You played Simon Gagne yesterday. He didn't play for six months. Was it a gift so we can have his name on the Stanley Cup? COACH SUTTER: Well, he hadn't played for six months, and he played six minutes. So make that decision tomorrow. Q. Past couple days, the Flames have hired Bob Harley, the Canadiens bring in Michel Therrien. Do you think your success as an NHL guy coming in here, it's talked as being a copycat league. COACH SUTTER: No, I don't think so. I don't understand. Cause they were hired? Q. You've had success here getting to the finals. Pete DeBoer is a guy that was hired with NHL experience. Do you think that leads other teams that want to bring guys in with previous NHL experience? COACH SUTTER: I think you try to find the best coaches available. Peter is an awesome coach. I remember when I was in Calgary, I thought Peter and my brother Brent were the two best young coaches not coaching professional hockey. Bob Hartley coached in Switzerland. I coached against him a long time. Colorado. He was a good coach. Michel Therrien, we coached against each other a lot. You got to pay your dues. The best ones are the guys that have coached somewhere for a long time. Doesn't matter junior college, National League, American League. There's guys that fly by night, coach for two or three years, that's it. Historically that's not going to change.  The best coaches, you have to have the experience of doing it. Q. The numbers Jonathan Quick has put up in the playoffs and now in the final are reaching historical proportions, very close to the best ever. Have you ever seen goaltending like this? COACH SUTTER: Yeah. Miikka Kiprusoff. Q. In the finals? COACH SUTTER: Do the math. Seven games. 14‑13, goals‑for, goals‑against, seven‑game series. Pretty incredible. Q. Where were you when Dean called you about this job? How much had you watched the Kings before that? COACH SUTTER: I think I was in the barn. Q. What were you doing in the barn? COACH SUTTER: I wasn't shoveling shit, I remember that, but I had that day (smiling). Was probably warming up. It was cold. Q. You were literally in the barn? COACH SUTTER: Yeah. That's what I said. Q. How much had you watched the Kings? COACH SUTTER: You know, when you're in Canada and everybody that is here from Canada, you watch hockey every night, right? There's always two or three games on. That's what you do. It's dark at 4:30, and you watch hockey. That's what you do. It's a good thing. Q. Your guys have managed to stay on track between games. Are you pretty confident the room will look after that heading into this game? COACH SUTTER: The schedule's gotten tough. We either had a long night of travel, a long day of travel, a 5:00 game. You go farther in series, guys are banged up. You're doing a lot of work today. Then you have to start preparing again. So how confident am I? I mean, I don't lack in that area, and our team certainly doesn't. Q. Have you enjoyed this job more because you just have to coach, you don't have to be a GM, comfort level with Dean? COACH SUTTER: It's all the same, right? The only way you can enjoy it at the very most is if you're a player, right? Doesn't matter. You know what, it's about being a team, that's what it's about. Not separating it out at all. Q. Are you able to work on hockey on the ice and not have to deal with administrative things, things that take you away from the game? COACH SUTTER: I don't really look at it like that. I think I'm pretty invested in trying to help the players. Doesn't matter, that's what you should do. Q. Darryl, was there a moment after you took over, maybe it wasn't until the first game of the playoffs, but when you, at least to yourself, felt like, This team has a chance? COACH SUTTER: I don't know. From a team standpoint, a lot of individual things had different points, I think, that I knew we had a chance of being a playoff team. Then once you get in, anything happens, right? That's the way I always looked at it 'cause it was always just the way the conference was. We would go from 3rd to 11th in three or four games.  That's the best part of it, because it helps the players understand how close and tight it is, too. So I don't think there was a specific point. But for sure with individuals, there always was, you knew somebody had made that step or turned the switch a little bit. Q. What is the extent of your interaction day‑to‑day with Quick? As the head coach, when you have a goalie playing like this, is it pretty casual? COACH SUTTER: Yeah, I think you know what, Jonathan's decision whether he wants to go on the ice today or not, that will be his call. We have three goalies here. Make sure he's getting the nutrition, the hydration, getting anything he needs to see that's different from last night Billy will handle that, Ranford. Maybe if it's something different on the power play, something he hadn't seen yet. He's pretty astute in that, recognizing situations in a game, he can help with, whether it's playing a puck, we talk a lot about faceoffs, things like that. So he's always part of it. In our own zone, we always talk about six guys, not five. Him and Bernie are the sixth guy. Q. Can you touch on the value of two guys like Stoll and Greene, when they came here to L.A. together. COACH SUTTER: Similar character guys. You get asked about what you knew about the team when you came here. I knew a lot about Stollie and Greener, just from coaching against them. You get to know character in a hurry. Guys with that work ethic, guys that are team guys, you almost know it when you coach against them lots or see them lots. You almost know it better than your own players sometimes. Q. Darryl, you've mentioned a couple of times about how Drew Doughty, age 22, is obviously just getting better still. Can you talk specifically about what a deep playoff run like this will do for a guy that age going forward. COACH SUTTER: I think every player that gains experience of the playoffs makes them better players. Very simple. I think we talked about not having experience before the playoffs started, a lot of our players. Well, now they do. So he's no different. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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