KINGS GET A KICK OUT OF SUTTER
Post-game media chats leave his players laughin’, hootin’ and hollerin’
Whenever writers loiter around dressing-room doors during this Western Conference final, praying that a quote might leap out from behind one of them, someone usually lightens the mood by muttering a few seconds worth of Darryl Sutter imitation, in postgame news conference mode.
Deep voice. Few words. Halfsentences. Nods. Undisguised annoyance.
The guys testing the microphones at the front of the room to make sure the cameramen are getting the audio always lean into the mic, speak clearly and everyone gives the thumbs-up.
Then the L.A. Kings coach walks in, sits down and no one can hear half of what he’s saying.
A radio guy begins his question with a speech, and Sutter carves him a new one. A Kings website writer asks an earnest question and the coach’s irritation is a living, breathing thing. He gives a dismissive two-word response.
Silence falls. Seconds tick by. Reporters exchange ‘Not me’ looks, hoping someone, anyone, will volunteer to be the next victim.
“Yeah, we like watching them,” said Kings centre Jarret Stoll, of their coach’s podium performances.
“I don’t know if you guys like being part of them sometimes, but ... I think it was Game 7, either 5 or 7 in San Jose, we had the TV on after, when we were getting undressed, and we had to watch it. It was a pretty good one, and all the boys were laughin’ and hootin’ and hollerin’ about that one.
“But he protects his players. He protects his players really well, and as a player, I think you want that out of your coach.”
“That’s my responsibility. People ask me about injuries or how guys played or any of that. I won’t even talk about it because it’s not fair to them,” Sutter said Friday at the team’s practice facility, where his squad was preparing for Saturday’s Game 3 against the Chicago Blackhawks.
“There are guys in the (media) business, in the fraternity, who want everybody to think in press conferences that they invented the game. I’m not into that.
“I’d rather let out there answer,” he said, pointing to the ice. “That’s more important.”
This matchup of two of the best organizations in the game also features two of hockey’s finest game managers behind the benches, and sometimes two of its crankiest interviewees.
The Blackhawks’ Joel Quenneville can be so intense he practically throws off sparks. He is also capable of delivering a few terse sentences and walking off, and he mangles the language with the best of them. But generally speaking, he doesn’t treat reporters like something to be scraped off the bottom of his shoe.
“The markets are all different, eh? Canadian market, our market, Joel’s market,” said Sutter. “I think he does an awesome job at it. Deep down, we’re probably thinking the very same: take care of the players.
“We’ll be judged on what we did with the numbers, not on any of that. Still, the best time is what goes on in there (dressing room).”
He protects his players really well, and as a player, I think you want that out of your coach.
And in the room, the players like him just fine.
“There’s probably two different Darryls,” said captain Dustin Brown. “When he’s in the media, he’s very selective in what he says. I think he’s probably more upfront and honest with individuals in our room, in the sense that I think he knows how to push the right buttons at the right times. We see both sides of it.”
“He’s very serious, very demanding, but he keeps guys focused and ready to go. You’ll never say that a team he coaches didn’t come out with energy or emotion,” said defenceman Matt Greene. “He treats everybody really fair, really honestly, and that’s where respect comes from.”
“He’s an honest coach. You want to do well for him. He loves everyone in this room, and you know, sometimes he’s a hard-ass, but ... he brings the best out in everybody,” said Jake Muzzin, the 25-year-old defenceman. “He’s a little bit old school, but it’s working for us.
“I heard nothing but great things when I came in and they went to the Cup (in 2012). I came up as a Black Ace, and he did nothing but good things for me, was very encouraging, gave me the opportunity.”
Muzzin admits he’s had a few laughs watching Sutter deal with reporters. “Yeah, we do get a kick out of it actually,” he said. “He just likes to keep stuff in the room.”
Sutter is 55 now, and knows that there’s a pretty big age gap between him and the players. Yet he’s found ways to communicate with them all, the experienced and the inexperienced.
At the beginning, he said, he had to draw a line in the sand.
“Good coaches have real strong leadership skills,” Sutter said. “And the first thing you’ve got to do is take (leadership) back, then you’ve got to give it back. And every once in a while you’ve got to take a little bit of it, but don’t take it all, because then it becomes about you. Give it. Give it.
“This team has had some success because you’ve got five or six guys who are ( basically) captains. Good teams have a great leadership group. Not all teams have that. This team has it. Defer to them.”
In the end, Sutter says, it’s about the players, and this series — the winner of which surely will be favoured to win the Stanley Cup — is unlikely to be won by some piece of coaching derringdo.
But against one as sharp as Quenneville, you’d better not go in unarmed.
The Kings, if not their press conferences, are in the very best of hands.