Darryl Sutter bump or thump for Flames? How his offensive stars have fared historically

The Darryl Sutter and Calgary Flames “Unfinished Business” reunion tour kicks off Thursday night with the Jolly Rancher back behind the home bench at the Saddledome for the first time in 15 years.

“Good to have the flaming ‘C’ back on again,” Sutter said after his first practice on Tuesday. “To come back into the Saddledome again is special.”

His arrival to try to salvage this season poses all sorts of great questions, as my colleague Hailey Salvian explored in-depth this week.

One of the most curious situations is the impact the stern taskmaster will have on Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. The longtime linemates and catalysts of Calgary’s offence are now in seasons seven and eight, respectively, but have just one playoff series win, back in 2015.

Demanding, direct, intense. When you hear from players who have played for Sutter during his nearly three decades of being an NHL bench boss, these are the types of descriptors that come up time and time again.

But how will that old-school approach work in 2021?

That’s what we’re about to find out.

When Sutter began his NHL head coaching career, he was the league’s youngest coach at age 34.

Now he’s 62, the second-oldest skipper behind Dallas’ Rick Bowness.

“I think probably I’m a more patient coach as I get older with those guys, but at the same time, keep them focused on the details of the game,” Sutter said this week, reflecting on how he’s changed since his first stop with Chicago in 1992. “In a lot of ways, as you get older and that, as a coach, you become even a better coach at that part of the game.”

Sutter’s last stop as head coach was with the Kings, whom he guided to Stanley Cup championships in 2012 and 2014.

“When I went to L.A., we had those young guys — Drew Doughty, Tanner Pearson, Tyler Toffoli. Those guys are young players and now they’re top players in the league and you like to think that you helped them along the way,” Sutter continued.

“How has it evolved? Well, these kids have changed. It used to be you went up and down and then maybe go from the big team to the farm team and back. Now they come in and a lot of them are stepping right in and getting special status. I think there’s a lot of those players like that, quite honestly. You can make them better people, or better young men, then you can hockey players at the start, and eventually, they mature into a really good player.”

Jarret Stoll, who played for Sutter in Los Angeles, told The Athletic’s Pierre Lebrun this week that Calgary’s younger players have the most to gain, although it won’t come easy,

“He’s a lot harder on younger players than he is veteran players,’’ said Stoll, who now works for the Kings in player development. “They got to learn to play the right way. Sometimes with younger players, they need a wake-up call, sometimes they need to know how hard you can be pushed and how hard you can push your body.”

For a sense of what could happen, let’s examine how younger offensive players have produced under Sutter historically.

Below are 12 case studies of players in their 20s who played multiple seasons under Sutter. Included for comparison is a breakdown of their production in two seasons before Sutter, during their time under Sutter and in the two seasons after. The averages listed are based on 82 games.

Note: The before/after time periods may vary slightly in scenarios in which Sutter was hired or fired midseason, and/or when the player was involved in a midseason trade. The subjective color coding indicates how those numbers compared to the before and after — green – better; red – worst; orange – similar. Stage in career is also factored in.

Chicago Blackhawks | 1992-93 through 1994-95 

Sutter got into coaching immediately after he retired in the summer of 1987. After spending his entire playing career with Chicago, he moved behind the Blackhawks’ bench, spending 1987-88 as an assistant coach under Bob Murdoch. Sutter was only 29 at the time. After two seasons in the International Hockey League, and a Turner Cup championship with Indianapolis in 1989-90, he returned to Chicago and spent two seasons as an associate coach under Mike Keenan.

Sutter resigned after his third season to spend more time with family. At the time, his son Chris, who was born with Down syndrome, was 2 years old.

Darryl gave us a Chris Sutter update: "He's been practicing Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire. He believes (he) started that and believes he's the one who could get 20,000 people to stand up and sing it. So, whenever they come back, they better be ready because he's leading the charge."

— Darren Haynes (@DarrenWHaynes) March 10, 2021

C Jeremy Roenick 

What a luxury as a rookie head coach to have an elite player to lean on in Roenick, 22, who was coming off a 53-goal, 103-point season. Under Sutter, Roenick put up back-to-back 107-point seasons, which would be his career-best. But Roenick was often frustrated, ripping Sutter after the Blackhawks were eliminated by Scotty Bowman and the Detroit Red Wings in the 1995 Western Conference final.

“The bottom line is I want to have fun working again,” Roenick said. “With Darryl, everything’s a project and it doesn’t have to be that way. You shouldn’t have to be motivated by the negative, shouting and screaming all the time. It has been like that for five years. He has to remember what it was like to be a player.”

Roenick would never again surpass 80 points or 35 goals during the rest of his 20-year career. After retiring, Roenick walked back some of his Sutter criticisms on an interview on NBC.

“When I was younger and had a big ego,” Roenick said, “and you have a coach like Darryl Sutter who didn’t care who you were, was going to say things to you that sometimes you didn’t like, I think I took things the wrong way.”

RW Joe Murphy 

The No. 1 overall pick in 1986 was acquired from Edmonton at the trade deadline of Sutter’s first season as coach to play right wing with Roenick. Sutter liked Murphy’s penchant for stepping up in big games.

“He wasn’t any faster than anyone else, but when he had the puck and he could drive the net, he had a lot of courage,” Sutter said in this feature on Murphy. “He’d be a great player in today’s game because a lot of them don’t have much courage, because you don’t have to. But he had a lot of courage to score. He was a big-time player, that’s why he was a really good playoff player.”

Sutter was also influential in Murphy later being acquired by San Jose to play for Sutter again.

“I tried to help him off the ice as a person,” Sutter said. “That’s why I coached him, because I kept saying I could help him and he could help our team.”

San Jose Sharks | 1997-98 through 2002-03

After a couple of years away from the game to concentrate on family, Sutter returned to coaching in San Jose, where in June 1997 he inherited a Sharks team coming off a season in which they went 27-47-8 and finished just one point ahead of the last-place Boston Bruins.

The turnaround was immediate as the Sharks made the playoffs the next season and in the four years after that. They also steadily increased their point total, peaking in 2001-02 when San Jose went 44-27-11 for 99 points and won the Pacific Division. Sutter was fired on Dec. 1, 2002, after an 8-12-4 start.

RW Owen Nolan

As the captain of the Sharks, Nolan’s finest years in San Jose came with Sutter as his coach, and that should come as no surprise considering the brash way the power forward from Belfast, Ireland, played the game. Wearing the ‘C,’ he was a guy Sutter relied on to lead the team, both in character and in work ethic, and Sutter’s desire for those same qualities led him to sign Nolan in Calgary while he was GM of the Flames.

“The thing about Owen is, he’s a big-game guy,” Sutter said after he had moved on from the Sharks. “He wanted to be on the ice in clutch situations. He’s a very private guy. He’s selective about who he likes and who he doesn’t like and he doesn’t pull any punches. That’s why I had such a good relationship with him.”

C Patrick Marleau

After Boston drafted Joe Thornton No. 1 overall in the 1997 draft, the Sharks selected Marleau. Twenty-five years later, Marleau is just 22 games away from passing Gordie Howe and becoming the NHL’s all-time leader in games played. The fact that Marleau’s formative first four NHL seasons came under Sutter tells you all you need to know about how Marleau has been able to hang around the game for nearly a quarter-century.

LW Jeff Friesen

Packing speed and skill, Friesen was a key part of the offence and a necessary skill guy for Sutter as the Sharks made their way back from being league doormats and ascended into legitimate contenders. Like Nolan, it’s clear Friesen made a good impression on Sutter, because he later was signed by Sutter in Calgary. Likewise, you know Friesen thought highly enough of Sutter to accept the offer!

Calgary Flames | 2002-03 through 2005-06

Four weeks after firing Greg Gilbert, the struggling Flames told interim coach Al MacNeil he could finally put away his Micron skates as the coach hunt culminated in the hiring of Sutter on Dec. 28, 2002. How bad were things at the time? Calgary was second-worst in goals for, tied for last in the Western Conference, and had a dreadful league-worst 2-9-5 record on home ice. Calgary would go on to miss the playoffs that season, but nobody needs to be reminded about what happened the year after. In 2004, the Flames went on a Cinderella playoff run, in which Sutter guided his overachieving team of Jarome Iginla, Miikka Kiprusoff, and a bunch of blue-collar workers to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final before succumbing to Tampa Bay.

After the lockout, Sutter coached a second season before resigning after 2005-06 to concentrate on the GM job.

RW Jarome Iginla

For a guy in his prime, Iginla’s stats in his two years under Sutter didn’t reflect the normal progression, even factoring in the dead-puck era of the time. Instead of being on the rise, Iginla’s goal rate remained stagnant and his point production went down. But those who remember Iginla’s 2003-04 season will remember the beast of a year he had, which carried over into the playoffs. When Calgary beat Vancouver in Game 7 of the first round to start the run, Sutter said, “In 25 years in the game, that’s the single most dominating performance by one player in one game that I’ve ever seen.” Lofty praise, and he was just getting started.

Sutter shared his high praise of Iginla’s overall game ahead of Iginla’s number retirement last year. “He’s a good man who stuck with a team that struggled for a long time. He was a superstar, and when you look at the character guys we had on that team, there were no other stars. It was a work ethic thing and that was established by Jarome.”

Los Angeles Kings | 2011-12 through 2016-17

After the Kings’ slow start in 2011-12 cost Terry Murray his job, Sutter was named successor on Dec. 17, 2011. Sutter led the Kings to a 25-13-11 finish to the regular season and they kept rolling in the playoffs, winning 11 of their first 12 postseason games. They won the organization’s first Stanley Cup, defeating the New Jersey Devils in six games. Two seasons later, the Kings were crowned Stanley Cup champions again, this time defeating the New York Rangers in five games.

Sutter remained at the helm for three more seasons before being relieved of his duties after the 2016-17 season.

C Anze Kopitar

Sutter has called Kopitar the second-best player he ever coached, behind Chris Chelios. Offensively, Kopitar’s numbers were lower under Sutter, but this is another example of the devil being in the details. Kopitar was an integral piece thanks to his 200-foot game. Three times under Sutter, Kopitar was named a Selke Trophy finalist, winning it in 2016. When Sutter and GM Dean Lombardi stripped the captaincy from Dustin Brown, it was to give the “C” to Kopitar.

“He made me a winner – that’s what he did,” Kopitar told The Athletic’s Lisa Dillman in March 2019, ahead of playing in his 1,000th game. “He definitely made me a better player in the sense of just competing. He had his methods of motivation, pressing the buttons to get us going.”

C Jeff Carter

Carter had lots of baggage to check when he was traded from the Blue Jackets to Los Angeles in February 2012. First, there were persistent rumors around his departure from Philadelphia. His short-but-not-sweet stay in Columbus only further soured his reputation. But with the Kings, he became known for his clutch goal-scoring, while forming a deadly one-two punch up the middle with Kopitar.

While his goal-scoring came down, so did the number of giveaways, while metrics like hits and blocked shots went up, as one might expect from someone with a 6-foot-4 frame playing for Sutter. Perhaps the greatest endorsement of the growth made by Carter as player and person was Sutter naming him an alternate captain in 2015.

D Drew Doughty

In terms of personalities, the only way one would view Doughty and Sutter as twins is if you were thinking of the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Danny DeVito version. It’s a generalization, but you’re not far off with descriptions of Doughty, all fun, and Sutter, all business. But it worked, as two Stanley Cups and a Norris Trophy would suggest.

“You don’t want to be on his bad side,” Doughty said to The Athletic’s Eric Duhatschek, “Because it’s not fun. I was on his bad side for a few games and his sarcastic-ness, it’ll get to you. You can play a good game but if you make one mistake, he’s on you no matter what. Sometimes, it’s frustrating, but he’s making sure every little step is perfect. He’s adamant on every single thing. Without your top players being your best, you won’t win too many games.”

LW Tyler Toffoli

You know you’ve made a positive first impression when you end up playing more playoff games (12) than regular-season games (10) in your first NHL season. That was the case in 2012-13 for Toffoli, who then played in all 26 playoff games the next season, piling up 14 points (seven goals, seven assists). Those postseason reps did wonders for his development.

“He played a lot of playoff games and he’s played really well for us,” Sutter said back in 2015. “That’s a big step. There are young guys that don’t play playoff games. I bet it is a two-or three-more-year thing if they don’t play playoff games in that time. He’s got such good hockey sense. He’s a good player that can only get better if he applies the whole package, not over the summer. Every day.”

Toffoli thrived under Sutter, producing at a rate not seen again until Toffoli’s fast start this season with Montreal.

LW Tanner Pearson

Like Toffoli, Pearson was another young player who broke into the Kings’ lineup and earned Sutter’s trust quickly by impressing during a successful Stanley Cup run in his rookie season of 2014. Two seasons and 105 games in the AHL helped Pearson prepare for the transition. Now with Vancouver, and after hearing about the Sutter hire, Pearson told Canucks radio broadcast Brendan Batchelor, “I think with Darryl you have to work for everything that you get with him. He doesn’t really care who you are.”

RW Dustin Brown

But not everybody thrives under Sutter. Or at least, not forever. Brown captained the Kings to both Stanley Cup championships, but he found himself in the doghouse frequently after. When he finally scored his first goal of the 2015-16 season in November, Sutter remarked, “Hopefully, he remembers how he did it. He’s got to play a power game. I’m not sure that was a part of his game tonight. That goal didn’t mean anything at the end.” A week earlier, Sutter said bluntly that Brown “needs to be a better player.”

Brown’s inability to meet Sutter’s expectations got him demoted into the bottom six. It got worse from there with Sutter and Lombardi eventually stripping the “C” from him.

The interesting takeaway in these comparisons is that red isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If you look at Iginla, Kopitar, and Doughty, their production was lower under Sutter, but in that process, they each grew their overall games. Under Sutter, Iginla was runner-up for the Hart, Doughty won a Norris and Kopitar won a Selke.

“When I first was connected with Jarome and then we talk about the kids in LA,” Sutter explained, “those guys were really good players. It was just rounding out their games more and maybe in areas to expect more out of them and to demand more. Once they understand that or are in on that, then that offence, they thrive under that because of their confidence and how they feel about themselves and the composure that they learn to play with.”

That includes flourishing at the most important time of year — the postseason.

“You’ve got to look at what they did come playoff time always,” Sutter said, “because if there were scoring races in the playoffs, guys like Jarome, and for sure, Kopitar, won the scoring race in the playoffs and to me, that’s what it’s all about.”

Kopitar did, indeed, finish on top of the spring scoring race in both of L.A.’s Cup-winning years. Iginla was third behind Marty St. Louis and Brad Richards in 2004.

The script is no different now. Sutter realizes that the secret to success is extracting the most out of his best players. In Calgary, that’s guys like Gaudreau and Monahan.

“Look at how Tampa quietly changed their style of game,” Sutter said, “by bringing in certain styles of players, having better defence and getting star players to buy in, and they went from being a contender to winning championships.”

If regression offensively is part of the trade-off for becoming more well-rounded players, capped off by a long playoff run, there won’t be any complaints.

But to win a championship, you have to make the playoffs first.

With the Flames sitting six points back of the Canadiens and the final playoff spot in the North Division, that “buying in” must start now.

(Top photo of Darryl Sutter: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)