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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: KINGS v COYOTESMay 17, 2012Anze KopitarDarryl SutterLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game Three Los Angeles – 2 THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Coach, when your forecheck is going well, what makes it work? COACH SUTTER: I think it takes all five guys to make it work. We weren't that good at it early in the game and they were. We didn't get a chance to forecheck early. Tough with the goalie, he moves it so good. Q. Is your team a team of destiny now? 11‑1? COACH SUTTER: Destiny? What is that (laughter)? Q. Your top three centers all had strong games tonight. Stoll is not a guy that gets as much attention. Talk about his game. COACH SUTTER: We talked about it earlier. When he's slotted right where he is, he's awesome. He's had a strong, powerful game tonight. I thought him and Kopitar were outstanding. Q. Is there a little kid inside of you just semi‑partying because you're one win from the Cup finals? COACH SUTTER: No, too old to be like that. I've been in lots of Conference Finals, and only won one. We have a long ways to go here. As I said, doesn't matter. The farther you go, the tougher it is to win games. Two is tougher than one. Three is tougher than two. Not hard to figure it out. Q. Talk about answering their goal so quickly to tie it up? COACH SUTTER: Our top goal‑scorer made a great goal. Q. All playoffs, every time they would score, you would answer back. COACH SUTTER: Both close games, right? Both being up one, down one. That's why some games take all night. Somebody ties it up, somebody scores. That's real. Q. You could sit back and try to protect leads when you get them. What is it that makes you philosophically try to keep going and push for more? It can be just one goal? COACH SUTTER: Well, it's tough to only score one goal and win. I think we learnt that during the regular season. I think we had 10 1‑0 games one way or the other. Tough to win 1‑0. Q. Coach, players seem to indicate it was pretty animated before third period intermission. Did you say something because they seemed to come out fired up for the third period? COACH SUTTER: It wasn't me that was animated. Between the second and third? Q. Yes. COACH SUTTER: No, it wasn't me. Q. Do you want to tell us who it was? COACH SUTTER: No. That's the players' room, not the coach's room. Q. Can you comment on Dwight King's performance. Did you expect him to come out scoring like this, five goals in the playoffs? COACH SUTTER: Obviously a big goal tonight. Great play out of the corner. Guy with good hands. A little composure there. Puts it right in the spot he has to. Huge goal for us. Q. The fact he was able to score that goal a little bit farther away from his normal close around the net, are you seeing him add more parts to his game? COACH SUTTER: Well, tonight's goals were totally different than Game3. I don't know about him on his own. The last game we played against, all four goals were screens, tips and rebounds. Tonight was a breakaway and a play coming out of the corner where the goalie saw it. You know, you got to score in different ways, and he's done that. He even scored an empty netter. Q. Coach Tippett was in here talking about the officiating, questioned some of the calls, particularly saying there's some guys on your team who were embellishing. Do you care to comment on that? COACH SUTTER: Embellishing? Q. Diving. COACH SUTTER: I didn't see that. We didn't complain last game. There wasn't that many power plays, so obviously we're doing something right. Q. Obviously one win at a time here. COACH SUTTER: Yup. Q. Talk about the importance of stepping on the jugular for several reasons? First of all, you want to win the series, second of all rest. COACH SUTTER: Actually we get about 60 hours' rest before our next game, right, as long as nobody's in that bike ride. Fly to SanFrancisco tonight, wherever they're at. I really don't know the bearing that's going to have. We still got to win a game. Might take us another three, five, seven, nine days, so... I don't think we're looking too much farther ahead to tomorrow morning and practice. Q. How much would it help to take care of them now and let the other two teams beat the heck out of each other? COACH SUTTER: Well, that always helps. You can't predict the future very well. Q. Michael Ross has forewarned that Sunday is going to be a busy day. Do you feel you have to get here early? COACH SUTTER: Be here night before, wade through all them bikes to get here. Be awesome actually if you think about it. Geez, that and then the basketball after. Tough getting in, tough getting out. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Anze Kopitar. Q. This team you're playing was so good in the last round of the playoffs, how have you been able to put the pressure on them so far this series? ANZE KOPITAR: Well, we just want to stay aggressive, play within the whistles, staying out of it, out of the retaliation stuff. I think tonight first period we kind of sat back and figured out pretty quick it's not going to work. They were coming at us pretty good. After that I think we got our game in order and pushed right back. Q. Talk about the little kid inside of you right now. One win at a time. We know all that. What is the little kid saying inside one win away from the finals? ANZE KOPITAR: It's exciting, of course. But just like you said, there's still one left in the series. After that we'll see what happens, who it is. But, again, we're going to enjoy this one tonight and get back at it tomorrow. Q. I'm curious, you're up 3‑0, this issue of retaliation, you talk about avoiding retaliation which seems to be a motto of this team right now. How easy is it to prevent yourself from retaliating? If it is easy, why doesn't it happen during the regular season? ANZE KOPITAR: Well, I mean, I guess it's easier to take a punch in the face in the playoffs knowing that you're going to get a power play than it is in regular season. But, you know, that's the game plan going in. You want to be disciplined, you want to not let them to go on the power play because they do have some firepower. So far we've been doing a pretty good job. Q. During the regular season, if you wanted to, could you stay back and not respond if you needed to? ANZE KOPITAR: Yeah, I think so. Q. You talked about the push‑back. You put their D under duress. What makes your forecheck so good when it's working? ANZE KOPITAR: I think the first period, we were turning over the puck quite a bit in the neutral zone. Every time you do that, your skates are facing the wrong way, obviously you got to back‑check. You don't get a whole lot of flow, not a lot of offensive zone time. After that, we cleaned it up. Got the pucks behind the D. We weren't trying to make a perfect play on their blueline. We got in there, got some cycles going, it worked out for us. Q. Can you talk about the knack you've shown to come back with a goal after they score? ANZE KOPITAR: It seems we've come back pretty quick every goal we get scored on. I mean, it's just the way we play. Again, we try to stay aggressive, score goals, obviously. Q. Could you take us through your goal, how you thought about it. ANZE KOPITAR: Well, we had a little scrum in our zone. Me and Justin were able to dig the puck out. He passed it over to Browny. At that point I was side‑by‑side with our player. I knew if I could get a step on him, there was a good chance I was going to get a breakaway. Brownie got a good pass. The rest is just going in. I think instincts just take over, and fortunately for me it worked out. Q. Four months ago if I would have told you you would be 11‑1 in the playoffs, what would you have said to me? ANZE KOPITAR: Well, I mean, the biggest thing is we believed in the locker room that we can do it. Not a lot of guys outside the locker room gave us the chance, I guess. Especially, you know, barely squeaking in the playoffs. Right now 11‑1 doesn't really mean anything. We're taking it a game at a time. That's what we want to focus on. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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