Sutter Finds Way to San Jose

He couldn’t ask more of his players than he could give of himself, not if he was going to remain true to the principles that have governed his hockey career and his life.

Darryl Sutter could have stayed on as coach of the Chicago Blackhawks for the paycheck. He could have kept going on the coaching merry-go-round and tried to force the jagged pieces of his life to fit together.

But two years after his youngest son was born with Down’s syndrome, Sutter knew he could no longer make a wholehearted commitment to his job. The boy needed him more than Sutter needed the gratification of coaching, and there was no question what he would do.

Saying he would never work for another NHL team, Sutter left and took his family back to its 1,500-acre farm in Viking, Canada. The land had nurtured him, toughened him and taught him to appreciate family and hard work. Maybe it could nurture Christopher, too.

“It wasn’t that I walked in one day and said, ‘No.’ They wanted to renew [his contract]. I said, ‘No, it’s unfair to you, it’s unfair to my family,’ ” he said. “I wanted to get him away. It was something we always had, to go back to the farm. We’d always go back summers, to kind of recharge. And I know how much the kids enjoy it. Then you can get away from it and you hang around with your roots more.”

Constant attention and stimulation in comfortable surroundings worked wonders for Christopher, now 4 1/2. And being Christopher’s father has changed Darryl Sutter, 39, in ways he never anticipated.

“I don’t think people realize how much impact you can have on a child when you spend that kind of time,” he said. “It’s unbelievable. And we were lucky because it’s such a small community. You know everybody for 40 square miles. Everyone knew Chris. It’s special.

“But at the same time, once you get him to those levels where he’s progressing, you’re not going to sit and say, ‘That’s good enough.’ Every day, it’s a constant thing. It’s not like other children. You know they’re going to learn how to count and know colors, all the little things we did as kids and didn’t worry about. But to see Chris do it, that’s really special.”

Determined to give Christopher every chance to develop his potential, Sutter returned to coaching--not in Chicago, where Craig Hartsburg presides, but in San Jose, where Christopher can get aggressive therapy he couldn’t get near the farm. Sutter is back on the merry-go-round, but he no longer agonizes over losses enough to sleep in his office, as he did in Chicago.

That’s not to say he has relaxed his standards or been less than brutally frank in assessing his team. Dissatisfied with the performances of his veterans and fearful young players would follow those bad examples, he said a few weeks ago the older players “have to understand that other teams don’t want them. What are they going to do, clean stables in Kentucky?” He singled out Kelly Hrudey and Mike Vernon, saying the Sharks were getting “outgoaltended” too often, and he benched veteran center Bernie Nicholls for four games in a recent five-game stretch.

“Absolutely, Darryl is blunt. He’ll say things that you don’t want to hear. There are going to be some miserable days,” said defenseman Marty McSorley, who has felt Sutter’s wrath. “But with Darryl, there’s an end to his means. He wants to win.”

It’s shock treatment for a team accustomed to being lovable losers, but Sutter’s credentials are impressive enough for players to accept it. And by taking time off with Christopher he enhanced his reputation, not hurt it.

“The first thing that says to me is he doesn’t have to coach, that you’re not dealing with a guy who’s looking to save his job or is worried about how he looks,” McSorley said. “Those things drive me crazy, coaches worried about how they look, because then their decisions are not team decisions. Darryl’s not like that. That’s why I’ll take whatever he dishes out.”

Nicholls also takes Sutter’s criticism without whining. “I said from Day 1 that I have all the respect in the world for Darryl. He’s the guy we needed to give us a kick in the butt,” Nicholls said. “One thing Darryl said early is that he doesn’t care about name, rank or serial numbers, and that’s great. I’ve seen guys say, ‘I’ll criticize these guys but not these,’ and tippy-toe around things . . .

“If you don’t respect that, in my opinion, you’re a loser anyway. You’re not here to make friends. That’s not what this is all about.”

It’s about winning. But for Sutter, who leads the Sharks to Anaheim tonight to face the Mighty Ducks, it’s also about balancing the roles of teacher, father and alchemist as he attempts to transform one of the NHL’s worst teams into a fierce competitor.

“I think he’s every bit as intense as he ever was. He’s more patient, too, knowing the situation he’s coming into here is somewhat different than Chicago,” said Shark center Ron Sutter, Darryl’s younger brother by four years. “In Chicago, he had more talent. Here, he’s trying to install some good work habits.

“He’s making players believe they have to make the commitment every time they come to the rink. I believe he’s got the team believing as a team. It has to be as a team. The most talented teams don’t always win. It’s the teams that work the best together.”

Darryl Sutter knows something about work, on the farm and in hockey.

The third-oldest of seven brothers--six of whom played in the NHL--he spent eight seasons with the Blackhawks and scored 161 goals, mostly on rebounds or gritty plays around the net. He never finessed anything, but neither did he let up. He never missed the playoffs in 16 seasons as a player or coach, compiling a coaching record of 110-80-26 and guiding the Blackhawks to the Western Conference finals in 1995.

His playoff streak is in peril this season. The Sharks, who had the NHL’s second-worst record last season, are an odd mixture of players brought in under constantly changing strategies and placed in an environment where winning seemed secondary to creating gimmicks to entertain fans. They have no finishers or real scoring threat besides Owen Nolan, who has six goals. Their best players are their youngest, 19-year-old Marco Sturm and 18-year-old Patrick Marleau.

For years, the Sharks coasted on the novelty of being the only team in town and the drama of their 1994 playoff upset of Detroit. They can’t coast anymore. Their sellout streak ended last March at three years and 118 games, when fans finally tired of hearing about promising players who didn’t produce.

“We have to get past the comfort level of players knowing they’re going to play in certain situations, no matter the score, win or lose,” McSorley said. “Darryl’s going to keep you off guard. He’s not going to let anybody get comfortable. He’s going to make you work for your next shift. You may think you put some [good] games together and then find yourself on the end of the bench. He’s forcing guys in the organization to get out of their comfort level, which is not bad because you need a high level of consistency.”

So bad were the Sharks last season that when Sutter came across a Shark game, he’d change the channel.

“I was disappointed to see the effort, the commitment level,” he said. “In the past, I don’t know how important it was to do really well on the ice because they were always told it was all right and they were patted on the back and told they were good guys. That was part of the whole program.”

He took the job “because you think you can do it. . . . “The big thing I’ve tried to impress on everybody is the whole attitude has to change, the whole environment, as far as what’s expected, and that doesn’t necessarily mean it changes in a year. . . .

“To me, so much of it comes back to the work ethic and commitment. If I can get the sense or feeling out of the players that that’s important to them, too, and everybody else can see it, then you’re headed the right way. But if you don’t see that, you’re walking in the dark again, like they’ve done.”

There are signs he has made inroads. The Sharks’ goals-against average has shrunk to near three and they’re limiting opponents to 23 shots a game. “It looks like we’re [5-11-1] and he hasn’t done anything, but the fact is he’s turning around a whole organization and whole attitude,” Hrudey said.

While his players adjust, his family has settled in the Bay Area. Christopher, in therapy four days a week, is thriving. “We’re lucky because he’s such a social little guy. A lot of kids with Down’s aren’t, and you don’t know where they’re going to go in those areas,” Sutter said. “I relate that to us being with him and being with everyone he knows during those two years.

“He really enjoys his therapy. You could tell he’s working at it, too, like he’s trying so hard.”

Of course. He’s a Sutter.