LOS ANGELES — When Darryl Sutter outlined the arduous process of running a 3,000-acre farm near his Albertan prairie hometown of Viking last week, it offered a more detailed glimpse of small town vs. media metropolis difference in lifestyle that has occasionally captivated media types and the hardcore Los Angeles Kings fans who have celebrated the team's second conference championship in 45 seasons.
More than spawning anecdotes dwelling on the rural vocation of planting wheat, oats and barley, and riding a tractor much of the day, it illustrated the straightforward and hard-working personality he's been able to impart onto the Kings, who went 12-2 in the Western Conference playoffs against a trio of division winners.
"Came in, keeping guys honest," captain Dustin Brown said of Sutter's approach. "There's games where I thought I didn't play my best. He brought attention to it pretty quickly. That goes a long way, whether you're a young player or older player."
"When you have a guy that's pushing you to be better – not just you, but everyone – it goes a long way. Maybe helping you look at yourself in the mirror."
Of the six Sutter brothers who have played in the NHL – Darryl, Brian, Duane, Brent, Rich and Ron – none scored fewer than 139 goals or appeared in less than eight seasons. With the New York Islanders, Duane won four Stanley Cups and Brent two, marking the total collection of Cups won across the Sutter family.
Darryl came close to playing in a Stanley Cup Final twice as a player with the Chicago Blackhawks in the mid-1980s, though two losses to the Gretzky-led Edmonton Oilers in the conference finals ruined any opportunity for a Sutter family reunion.
In 1983, a four-game sweep at the hands of the Oilers prevented Darryl from challenging Brent and Duane of the Islanders for the Stanley Cup. Two years later, Edmonton again beat Darryl's Blackhawks, ending the possibility of a matchup against Don and Rich of the Flyers.
Stanley Cup appearances do not happen frequently, and that's a notion not lost on Darryl Sutter. He'll appear in his second Cup Final as a coach after his Cinderella Calgary Flames team took the Tampa Bay Lightning to a seventh game in 2004 before losing in the final game played before the lockout.
"Two of my brothers have won six, and you know what? I've played in a lot of conference championships and coached in them, and in the Stanley Cup Final," Sutter said. "You know what? It's really difficult. There's 30 teams now, and it's really difficult."
"I know what it takes, what you give up from a personal standpoint. So that's why it's good to be here."
And that's exactly where any sentimental nostalgia comes grinding to a screeching halt.
"Everybody talks about all the sexy, romantic stuff. But all the work you put in, it's for the players," he said. "That's what it's for. Those guys that do the sweatin' and bleedin'. When they try and do what you're trying to get ‘em to do and they're rewarded for it, that's the best part."
With that said, his work in helping transform Drew Doughty into a dynamic, versatile defenseman who has improved in so many facets since Sutter's arrival has to be a major point of pride – when the season ends, of course.
"Drew Doughty is an awesome kid, and he's a very coachable kid," Sutter said last month.
The most stark effect Sutter's had on the team, and a heavy reason why Los Angeles is about to appear in the Stanley Cup, is that he has gotten through to his players on the benefits of moving the puck quickly up ice and spending as much time in the attacking zone as possible.
The evolution in team philosophies helped wring more production out of Anze Kopitar, who was a minus-7 with 30 points in 33 games prior to Sutter's arrival. From December 22 onward, he produced 46 points and a plus-19 rating in 49 games while solidifying his status as the Kings' most skilled forward.
"He stressed that he wants us to be more aggressive playing with the puck a lot more than we did before," Kopitar said. "Obviously, at that time he was watching some tapes. Coming in now, that's what he was stressing, playing more aggressive, being more accountable."
While he avoided describing the "sexy, romantic stuff," he did answer a question about his favorite perk of guiding a scorching Los Angeles team through the Western Conference playoffs.
"Seeing young guys go through the playoff experience for the first time," Sutter said. "There's so many players on our team that either hadn't been in it or hadn't been in the first round or else had never won a round. That, to me, is the best part of it."
"Gives me shivers to see the guys enjoy it the way they do. It's like a family, always."
While the honesty and straightforward communication are a shaping part of his coaching approach, don't mistake it for the more personal constitution of Darryl Sutter the farmer, or Darryl Sutter the family man – two realms completely separate from his coaching endeavors.
"It's what I do," he said of coaching. "It's not who I am."
