Kings’ Sutter makes critics eat crow
Wrong man for L.A. coaching job proves to be perfect choice
LOS ANGELES— It was a hiring that received a surprising amount of criticism, almost vitriol, particularly given the experience and success the person had enjoyed previously over the course of a long career.
Yes, we could be talking about Jim Rutherford, appointed on Friday as the new general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Rutherford was a bit of a surprise, perhaps. But as a Stanley Cup finalist in 2002 and a winner in ’06, Rutherford’s resumé reads well.
His age, 65, seemed to rankle some. Little bit of ageism there.
The backlash against Rutherford’s hiring was also interesting in that it was reminiscent of that which greeted another hockey man still very much in the spotlight these days.
Recall, if you will, all the uncomplimentary things said about Darryl Sutter when he took over the coaching reins of the Los Angeles Kings 21⁄ years ago.
2 A failure in Calgary. Not enough of a departure from the fired Terry Murray. A mediocre overall coaching record. Wrong guy to coach kids.
Well, the wrong man for the job has turned out to be exactly the right man, with three wins needed for L.A.’s second Stanley Cup with Sutter behind the bench.
“I didn’t know anything about Darryl when he came in,” said winger Justin Williams.
“The man upstairs (GM Dean Lombardi) has a great feel for what the team needs. And he felt the team needed Darryl Sutter to get us to the next level.”
The mistake many make is to see Sutter as a grunting, one-dimensional character rather than what he actually is. This is a person open-minded enough to go to Japan for a year when he wasn’t drafted high enough.
His pro career had good moments — he scored 40 goals once and 20 or more five times — and brought more skill to the table than any Sutter other than Brent. He was also gritty and tenacious and Chicago’s captain for five years, but had his career cut short by chronic knee problems.
As a player, he was a bit of everything, and experienced success and disappointment. As a coach, he left an NHL bench to go back to the farm and tend to his special-needs son.
“We can tell he cares about the players,” said centre Mike Richards. “He knows what we’re going through. He knows what it takes to create success.”
Since Sutter arrived, the Kings have, analytics suggest, become a dominant possession team, perhaps the best in the sport. That’s not the result of a coach reliant on old-style thinking.
Centre Jarrett Stoll remembered Sutter brought a much greater emphasis on faceoffs when he arrived as a means of controlling the play.
“I also remember him talking to us centremen, saying, ‘You guys are going to control the team, control the pace, control the middle of the ice, and we’ll win,’ ” said Stoll.
“When he came in he pushed the right buttons with the right people. Before Darryl got here we had terrible starts, we weren’t prepared to start games, we had tough first periods. He had a whole new attitude, new perspective.”
Sutter was multi-dimensional as a player, able to play the game any way, and his team is a reflection of that. A grinding, cycling team when they won the Cup in 2012, the Kings have added or promoted skilled offensive players this season and become a high-scoring outfit. They haven’t won a division title since Sutter arrived, but have made it to three conference finals and two Cup finals. It’s like he prepares the Kings for the battles they really need to win, including nine triumphs in their last 10 playoff series. “Good organizations have an identity, and that starts with management, and that starts with the coach. I think Darryl gives us that identity,” said defenceman Willie Mitchell. Drew Doughty is arguably the Kings’ most gifted player, and Sutter seems to accept that with Doughty’s offensive creativity comes some risk. In Game 1 of this Cup final against the Rangers, Doughty gave away the puck on New York’s first goal, then scored a beauty of his own later. “I’m not scared to make a play even if I messed up before,” said Doughty. “He still disciplines me all the time. He’s the first to tell me if I’m not playing well, the first to yell at me if I’m not playing the way he wants me to play. “I remember one time in Minnesota he put me on forward because he thought I was jumping in too much. Made me not too happy, so I learned from there that I had to listen to what he said if I wanted to play. “He told me in the past he’d done that to (Chris) Chelios and Chelios scored while he was up there. I didn’t happen to score.” Sutter might often come across as a modern Eddie Shore. But he’s thoughtful, well-organized and prepared. He took a franchise that had never won and won, confounding his critics. So beware the knee-jerk reaction, although our Twitter world constantly demands it.