Kings Coach Darryl Sutter not sold on joys of the road
Kings Coach Darryl Sutter spent part of his post-practice media session on Tuesday talking about schedules, traveling and playoff logistics, spelling out the disadvantage for his team.
“That’s all part of not being a home-ice team,” he said.
The Kings-Blues series will start in St. Louis … eventually. Sutter simply wants to know. And, as he said, then they can get in a “prairie schooner,” and head over to St. Louis. The Western Conference semifinals meets “Little House on the Prairie.”
Sutter also dismissed the statistic favoring visiting teams by a wide margin thus far in the 2012 playoffs.
“I know from the experience of it, the less travel you have … you want to be in your own building,” he said. “It still does have a psychological difference to the player.... You want to play the deciding game in your building, always.”
The Kings, who clinched their first-round series Sunday in Vancouver, had the day off Monday and were on the ice Tuesday in El Segundo. Injured forward Kyle Clifford did some limited skating near the end of the main session but did not practice.
Dustin Penner and Dwight King swapped spots, Penner moving to the second line with Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, and King joining Trevor Lewis and Jarret Stoll. It’s not a new look in the postseason, Sutter noted.
“We’ve got to continue to move around, right?” he said. “And we’re lucky we’ve got guys who can play everywhere.… Our left wing hasn’t excelled five on five, so we’re trying to find stuff to work. We did it in Vancouver.” twitter.com/reallisa
Go beyond the scoreboard
Get the latest on L.A.'s teams in the daily Sports Report newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
