Ever since brother Darryl was let go, Brent Sutter has been a changed man.
CALGARY — It just seems too easy. Too convenient.
To sit here at the Heritage Classic, with the Calgary Flames suddenly in playoff contention and firing away on all cylinders, and simply blame everything that happened pre-Christmas on deposed general manager Darryl Sutter?
"It’s too easy," agrees Calgary defenceman Mark Giordano.
But then you see Flames head coach Brent Sutter working his media scrum. He was never this loose before, never so quick to smile.
And you wonder: Is he smiling, because the Flames are winning? Or are the Flames winning, in part, because Brent Sutter is finally smiling again?
"It’s hard to believe where we were," Giordano said Friday, in a Saddledome dressing room that hasn’t been this jam-packed with media since the Cup run of ’04. "When you looked at it big picture, it seemed like such a tough thing to do."
Sutter was fired here on Dec. 28.
On Dec. 23 Calgary was in 14th spot in the West and eight points south of the playoff line.
Since then the Flames have put together a 16-4-5 record. They’ve won 10 of their past 13.
So, some players are playing better — namely Olli Jokinen — and Miikka Kiprusoff is back to his old form in goal.
We get that.
And with winning has come confidence. We get that too.
But all because of a fired GM? C’mon…
"The big thing that changed," began interim general manager Jay Feaster, "was that there was so much speculation around here, around the team. The coach has always been the guy who goes, right?
"The coach has been around here for two years, and then he’s out. I really do believe that we had some guys who subconsciously looked at it and said, ‘He’s going to be gone. I’ll see if I like the next guy.’
"When the change was made, I go in the room and tell the guys: ‘I believe in this coach and his staff. I support this coach and his staff. We need to all get on the same page here, and support each other.’ It removed a subconscious (crutch). I think it was a buy-in thing."
Since about three months after Brent arrived to coach brother Darryl’s team, there were rumours of discord between the two.
They weren’t talking. When they were, Darryl — a former Flames coach himself — was telling Brent how to employ the players he had acquired for him. Brent would play an Ales Kotalik against his better wisdom, and have a blow-up with Darryl after the game.
Today, Brent appears a far happier man. Of that there is no doubt.
But what does it say about this group of players that it takes an executive firing to get them to give it their all?
"We are definitely not putting it all on him. That’s the easy thing to do," said Giordano, an un-drafted free agent who has quietly become the Flames best defenceman for the past two seasons. "Darryl was the guy who brought most of us here. He brought me here.
"You never want to hear that you’re not good enough — as a player or as a team. We got confident, and we’ve got a chance of getting in (to the playoffs) here now. A month ago, if you’d have said that? A lot of people would have said, ‘No way.’"
On Friday, Darryl Sutter was back on his ranch pulling calves. On Sunday, his old team will be working out in the cold as well, in Heritage Classic temperatures being forecast anywhere from minus-11 to minus-15 Celsius.
"Perfect for hockey," said Brent Sutter, with a grin you see 100 times more often today than you did two months ago.
The last time they played an outdoor game in Alberta, Steve Staios was manning the blueline for the Edmonton Oilers. The temperature at Commonwealth Stadium was minus-19 when the puck dropped.
Then the sun went down.
"It was very, very cold," Staios recalled. "Just a huge challenge for the ice guys to make ice that was fast and playable."
The difference between that November game and this one is with the Flames in a huge logjam of Western teams fighting for the playoffs — and the Montreal Canadiens on a slide — the spectacle comes in a pale second place to two crucial points at home for Calgary.
It seems this team, as opposed to the nearly identical roster that played for Sutter, is up for the challenge.
"On a nightly basis we don’t have passengers," Feaster said, when asked what the biggest difference was. "It is truly a 60-minute effort, and when we fall behind, there’s no panic like there was earlier.
"When we work hard, for 60 minutes the way the coaches ask, we’re a pretty good team."
That’s what Darryl must have thought when he put this team together.
