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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: FLAMES v SHARKS

May 14, 2004

Darryl Sutter

CALGARY, ALBERTA: Practice Day

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Darryl, please.
Q. How do you explain being 7-2 on the road and 3-4 at home?
DARRYL SUTTER: Actually, I think we've played really well at home. Just unfortunately in playoffs everything's based on W's and L's.
Q. I didn't hear your comments on the way that game ended last night. What were your thoughts? Obviously Wilson didn't like it.
DARRYL SUTTER: Who didn't like it?
Q. Wilson.
DARRYL SUTTER: After they take a step back, I don't think it's that big a deal when they look at it.
I think Jarome was frustrated because he felt there were some penalties that should have been called on him.
Q. Jarome seems to fight when he comes to this kind of scenario. He didn't last night. Any significance to that?
DARRYL SUTTER: No. I mean, I don't make a big deal out of it. I was asked it last night. It's not a big deal.
If Jarome would have got in a fight, then that would have been the question that was asked after the game. It really has no bearing on anything. It was a hell of a hockey game. A 1-0 game with a couple minutes left.
It's weird what happened there because, you know, they called the penalty before on Nieminen, and neither team knew it. The referees didn't even know it on the ice.
We pulled our goalie. Really, we went a whole shift after the puck was dropped, too many guys on the ice. Nobody recognized it. Officials, neither team knew. I think both teams just thought there was off-setting minors.
That's why before we took the faceoff down in the corner again, when Dan came over, he was talking about it, neither team knew. That's when he said -- that's when they put Nieminen's time up on the clock, after everybody played a shift. So it was kind of confusing.
Q. Mayhem, was it?
DARRYL SUTTER: Well, no. At that point, you know, we were trying to get -- to have an extra guy on the ice, and we did - illegally, without doing anything wrong, because they didn't know either. I don't know. Kind of weird.
Q. Fire and passion from Jarome, was this sort of him exerting himself, sort of arriving as a leader?
DARRYL SUTTER: We're not still playing without that. I think it's a question that's been -- that's went on since he got jammed by Ohlund in the first series. That's part of Jarome's makeup. That's why you're still playing. He's the captain of our team. That's part of his identity.
It's funny, I had to address it last summer, everybody talked like, for some reason he wasn't supposed to do that, three or four a year. I didn't know you weren't supposed to do that.
Q. Can you talk about Korolyuk as a player?
DARRYL SUTTER: He's a really skilled player. You can tell he's grown -- he's matured. He's not a young player. He's 28 or 29 now, Alex. You look at a kid like Oleg who is 23, where that can go in four or five years. That's the comparison I make.
Q. What was your take on what he did last night? Was he hot-dogging, killing time?
DARRYL SUTTER: On the empty net goal?
Q. Yes.
DARRYL SUTTER: No. You know what I think he was doing? I think he was waiting to see. I'm sure he was thinking about giving it to somebody. When he looked like he was cut off, he shot it in.
It's not a big deal. What the hell, he shot in the empty net. Delayed shot in the empty net.
Q. Did Korolyuk not take too kindly to your method of coaching a couple years ago?
DARRYL SUTTER: No. I think that's a miscalculation, or misinterpretation. You know, when Alex came over, he was a real skilled guy. A lot of Europeans, when they come over, that's what they are. They measure on scoring, not on the whole package.
You know, he played in the American League. You know, you look at it, it's why I make that comparison to our Oleg, it's the same comparison. They're really skilled guys that it's taken time. You know, I think the biggest part, quite honestly, of Korky's development is he went back last year. Irregardless, he's a really good competitor.
When you're a really good competitor, you realize what it's like to play in the best league in the world, not in North America, but in the world. Some have to go to the American Hockey League to figure it out, some have to go to Europe.
Ultimately, if you're a high-end player, you're a good competitor, you want to play in the NHL. I think you probably mature in a hurry then.
Q. Does he play for you?
DARRYL SUTTER: Alex?
Q. Yes.
DARRYL SUTTER: Gee, you ask dumb questions. I'm serious. He's a good hockey player. He can play on every team in the National Hockey League.
Q. Do you have any theory on why you have nothing but European goalies left?
DARRYL SUTTER: It's an interesting one. Obviously, I'm biased. I think the best two goalies are in this series, for sure.
Q. There used to be a theory that European goalies, soccer feet, there's no hands-on baseball-type stuff?
DARRYL SUTTER: The old theory is because those guys came right over and played in the NHL. I think now what you're seeing is guys that come over and do their time. You know, they're schooled, they're taught. You know, I know the goalies in this series, a big part of why they are successful is because they've had really good coaching. I think that's a big part of it. You know, it's become -- doesn't matter where you're from, it's become more of a detailed game.
Q. But like Finland seems to be producing a ton of goalies, almost a second Quebec.
DARRYL SUTTER: Yeah. I don't know, somebody did a story on that earlier in the year down here. Bruce, I think, he checked on a lot of those guys. A lot of them -- a lot of those guys had goaltender coaches, they're isolated. Maybe that has something to do with it.
Q. Does the team play better when there's a genuine dislike of the other team?
DARRYL SUTTER: I think that's natural.
Q. Was last night's game a little more along the lines of what you were expecting from the Sharks?
DARRYL SUTTER: You know what, I think all -- because you try -- everybody tries to pick out good things and bad things from every game. But I think that all three games were so close. You know, I thought we played pretty well. I thought they did. They probably think they played really well.
I'm not overly concerned, again, with getting caught up in Vancouver, Detroit or San Jose. We got to concentrate on us.
Q. Sometime in the next few hours, Hockey Canada is going to announce its team for the World Cup. Can you make a case for Robyn Regehr to be on that?
DARRYL SUTTER: I can certainly make a case for him being on the list. It's funny how it's evolved. So many young, good Canadian defensemen now. We're seeing it in this series. I think there's -- just depends on the mix of the team. We can pick four or five guys, you know, then after that it's such a good mix of kids. It's just speculation, but if you put Redden in that group, kids from San Jose, Robyn. There's a pretty good group.
For me, I think Brewer, even though he was on it last time, I think he's in that group, too.

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