Sutter’s Homecoming

Calgary Flame Coach and General Manager Darryl Sutter has come clean.

He admitted last week that, yes, he was once involved with the San Jose Sharks. That confession is as far as Sutter is willing to go.

Still, Thomas Wolfe questions are being asked about Sutter going home to San Jose, where he spent five-plus seasons coaching the Sharks. That relationship ended with the traditional blood letting for failed expectations.

The Sharks were the trendy pick to win the Stanley Cup last season, but Sutter was gone after 24 games and the team finished 14th in the conference. Now team and coach are back, and will butt heads when the Sharks play the Flames in the opener of the Western Conference finals today in San Jose.

And there is nothing Sutter wants to talk about less than those roots.

It started as soon as the rags-to-finals Flames eliminated Detroit in the second round: “I don’t want to talk about it no more,” Sutter answered sharply when asked during the postgame news conference.

And it has continued through a conference call Friday: “I’m glad everyone wants to talk about it because I’m not.”

Sutter, in his first full season as the Flames’ coach, has done all he can to downplay the fact he was fired by the Sharks 17 months ago. He answers those questions, in fact he answers all questions, with stoic expression worthy of Mt. Rushmore, and at this point Flame fans would be willing to start carving in the Canadian Rockies.

But his San Jose topic thrives, fueled and fanned by the Sharks.

“So Darryl’s saying there isn’t something extra involved, is he? Nothing special, right?” Shark right wing Todd Harvey put out for public display in the Calgary Herald this week. “Don’t let him lie to you. He was hoping all along to get a crack at the San Jose Sharks. That’s Darryl. He’s the ultimate competitor.

“It’s funny, but you laugh and cry and bleed with someone, convinced that some day you’re going down the road to the promised land together, and he winds up standing in your way, blocking that road, and it’s either you or him.”

That may sound like a gauntlet being laid at Sutter’s feet. But it is really a tribute from his former players.

There were problems in San Jose last season, contract holdouts and in-room squabbling. But Sutter, players have said, was never an issue.

“Darryl was the biggest part of this organization,” Shark goaltender Evgeni Nabokov said. “To go against him right now is exciting. He deserved the opportunity to do what he’s doing in Calgary, and I’m happy he’s doing so well.”

Nabokov should not expect such glad tidings in return, at least while the series is in progress. Sutter is from a family that had six sons make it to the NHL. When he and his brother Brian played, they never spoke to each other during the season.

“When it’s over and done then you have friends again,” Sutter said this week.

Of course, Sutter doesn’t need to talk about his return. Shark Coach Ron Wilson, who followed him into San Jose and salvaged the Sharks, is talking and using enough oxygen for both coaches.

“Darryl can say all he wants that it has no impact on him,” said Wilson, who experienced the ex-coach feelings after being fired by the Mighty Ducks and Washington. “I know how I felt for two years when we played the Mighty Ducks. I wanted to beat them bad. It was never personal with the players, but you’re always going to think about being let go. Since I’ve been here, we’ve managed to beat Washington every time we’ve played them. That is a pretty gratifying feeling.”

Still, Wilson said, “as a coach, you don’t go into the dressing room and use that.”

Sutter has parlayed his granite-face style into a successful coaching career.

In San Jose, he took over a team that had won only 66 games the three previous seasons and improved their record for five consecutive seasons before the 2002-03 collapse.

Sutter’s impact in Calgary has been more dramatic, judging by the fervor it has created in that large cow town. The Flames have already defeated Vancouver, the conference’s third-seeded team, and Detroit, which had the best record in the NHL.

The city virtually shuts down during Flame playoff games. Ticket demand has been such that the team reopened an area at the top of the Pengrowth Saddledome to sell 1,000 seats that had not been used in five years.

“They haven’t had the playoffs here in a long time, so people in Calgary are a little possessive about the team right now,” Sutter said.

The Flames had missed the playoffs for seven consecutive seasons and had not won a playoff series since taking home the Stanley Cup in 1988-89. Sutter retooled the Flames, bringing in a handful of gritty players and acquiring goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff from, of all teams, San Jose.

“Darryl brought an intensity to this team,” Calgary captain Jarome Ignila said. “You either do things right or you hear about it from him.”

Which leaves little need for extra incentive, like Sutter vs. the Sharks.

Said Sutter: “You know why I don’t like talking about those things, because they’re all just distractions. It’s not a big deal. It’s got no bearing on this at all. It’s red versus blue ... or teal.”