Darryl Sutter ending 40-year NHL career
When Flames didn’t Call about CoaChing gig, former benCh boss made retirement offiCial
Had the Calgary Flames called this spring to inquire about the possibility of him returning to coach, Darryl Sutter admits he might have considered it.
However, since the Flames opted to go with Bill Peters, Sutter’s mind was made up — he’s retiring.
“I would have listened for sure,” said Sutter of a possible return to the organization he was a part of for eight years.
“Brad (Treliving, the Flames’ GM) made a great choice in Bill, as did Todd (McLellan) in Edmonton getting Gully (Glen Gulutzan) to join.”
With no chance of returning to the bench in his home province, the 59-year-old concluded there is no possibility he’ll return to the league in which he was drafted in 1978.
“Forty years, that’s enough,” said Sutter, when asked if he’d consider the Washington gig that became vacant when Barry Trotz resigned following this month’s Stanley Cup win.
“No way, I’d be too far away from the grandkids.”
Speaking from his 3,000-acre ranch on the family homestead in Viking, Alta., following a long day of farming, Sutter said he’d had a change of heart over the winter.
Shortly after being relieved by the Los Angeles Kings with GM Dean Lombardi last spring, Sutter kept open the possibility of a return, suggesting he’d consider it “if it was the right situation.”
He now insists there’s no scenario that could tempt him to leave his ranch to relocate once again with his wife Wanda and son Chris.
“I love my schedule now — that’s the best way to put it,” said Sutter.
“I enjoy watching the game on TV and I pull for certain players and I’m totally at peace with not coaching, that’s for sure.”
Sutter still has one year left on a three-year contract reportedly paying him in excess of $3 million annually.
He earned the deal in 2016 after leading the Kings to Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014.
At the time, he balked at the suggestion it might be his last contract, saying, “I still have plenty of coaching left.”
However, after missing the playoffs two of the three years after the Kings’ last Cup, his coaching career came to an end after a revitalized Jarome Iginla couldn’t help his club into the post-season.
Sutter was drafted 179th overall in 1978 by the Chicago Blackhawks and played eight years before joining the Hawks as an assistant.
Following three years as head coach, Sutter left the game in 1995. His son Chris had been born years earlier with Down syndrome and as passionate as Sutter has always been about the game, he just felt he needed to be home.
Two years later, he was back for a six-year gig with the San Jose Sharks that led to his Christmastime hiring by the Flames in 2002.
A year and a half later, the Flames shocked the hockey world by falling in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final to Tampa Bay.
“You know, when you lose a Game 7 in the Cup final you’re almost tied to it and want to win one even more after that,” said Sutter, who distinctly remembers being the last one to leave the dressing room in Tampa alongside Iginla that night. “It’s motivating.”
Sutter coached one more year in Calgary before jumping upstairs as GM, where he spent 3½ years trying to keep an aging team competitive before resigning exactly eight years to the day after he joined the Flames.
He returned the next year in mid-season as coach of the Kings, barely getting his team into the playoffs before they beat the top three seeds and saw him hoist his first Cup.
Sutter did it again in 2014. Sutter sits just outside the top 10 with 634 wins as an NHL coach and he did it by relentlessly challenging his players to be better, work harder and be more disciplined.
He might not be missed by many of the players, but he’s certainly missed by fans who relished his quirky exchanges with the media.
Sutter now works tirelessly on his farm where he’s anything but retired.
Asked what time he wakes up every morning, Sutter chuckled.
“When the sun comes up,” said Sutter, who used to hire farmhands to run his cattle and hay operation while he was away coaching.
“We’re doing it all ourselves now.”
His ranch and his family are his focus now.
His daughter and her young family live in Edmonton, while son Brett lives in Calgary with his family when not toiling in the American Hockey League for the Ontario Reign.
Sutter admitted to struggling to watch the NHL at first following his latest dismissal, but now says he looks forward to tuning in.
He prefers to watch the locals live at the Carena Complex, where he and his six brothers grew up playing before a 2007 fire prompted a rebuilt facility.
Inside are mementoes of all six Sutter brothers who played in the NHL.
“Quite honest, I like watching the kids around town in Viking — I really like that,” said Sutter, whose nephew Riley will be drafted Saturday.
“It’s a good life. I’m happy.”