Day 10 Practice Notes – Petersen, Byfield Updates + Durzi talks contract, Walker on the left
# Day 10 Practice Notes – Petersen, Byfield Updates + Durzi talks contract, Walker on the left
# Contributors
# Players
# Staff
# Summary
The Kings were back on the ice today in El Segundo as they prepare for their first preseason game in Los Angeles, coming tomorrow evening against the Anaheim Ducks.
# Notes and Quotes
Yeah, I mean, I don’t have a Norris and two cups, I couldn’t just walk into Blakey’s office and negotiate myself,” he said with a laugh. “I have a great team around me for that too. – Sean Durzi
Going into the summer with the shoulder, I made it clear that I wanted to focus on this, focus on bettering myself,” he said. “I didn’t know how long it usually takes, you see guys signing around the league and you’re like, ‘when are we going to get it done’ but it’s a process. You see the business aspect of things for the first time in your career and I have a good enough team that they allowed me to focus on myself and focus on what I can control and let them handle things on that side. – Sean Durzi
There were tons of options, you can go down the list. When you’re doing a contract negotiation, it’s not really one deal and you’re set on negotiating on that. It’s term, money, all that stuff and that was the first time I realized it was that much of a discussion. Like I said, I’m not Drew Doughty and I can’t just walk in there and go ask for whatever I want. It was a process, there were a lot of different options on the table and I’m really happy with what we got done. – Sean Durzi
Those guys came in and did an amazing job and they earned their keep, so that’s good for us,. The left side is not something that’s completely new to me and Royzie and I actually came up together and played in Ontario together and I was on the leftt side there, so it’s not super foreign to me. It’s just about reps and getting comfortable with it all over again, just kind of like everything right now. – Sean Walker
There are certain aspects of it, the o-zone for one, where I feel more comfortable walking off the wall. In the neutral zone, you’ve got to work with just some different aspects being a righty playing on the opposite side. There wil be some things that we figured out along the way, but I think it’s a really good opportunity for us to be really successful on the back end. – Sean Walker
Not everybody likes playing [their off side] and I’m all about comfort, I don’t want to put guys into situations to fail. If they’re not comfortable playing their off side, I’m not going to play him on that off side. With Walks, this is my fourth year here and he’s shown the ability to play both sides and not be affected by it too much. Durz is another one who has emerged into that role. You’ve got to play with the hand that you’re dealt, and that’s kind of what we have in our organization. – Trent Yawney
We have a plethora of right-handed defenseman, which isn’t a bad thing. If someone is going to play on the left, it’s making sure you find the right guy and make sure he’s paired with the right guy, and it works the other way too. There are lots of guys that play on their off side and like I said, it’s more about comfort. For some guys, it just doesn’t feel right and you notice it right away, so I’ll usually just pull the plug on that real quick. – Trent Yawney