Something stinks…and I think it’s Sutter B.S.
I’m calling B.S. Maybe the media won’t, but they are populist, anyway. Keep in mind that shortly after the Flames burned out in the first round of the playoffs (one could say they burned out toward the end of the regular season, when they were befallen to injury), it was the fans who were the voice of reason. It was the fans that pointed out that Darryl Sutter was the real issue here, putting his team behind the 8-ball when it came to the salary cap. It was Darryl Sutter grabbing another high-priced forward at the deadline instead of shoring up the defense he so loves to complain about well after the fact. It was Darryl Sutter who ignored that he had an entirely unproven backup goaltender on an otherwise (as he believes) Stanley Cup caliber hockey club, yet it’s the same Darryl Sutter who is now complaining that Mikka Kiprusoff played too much (as if Darryl couldn’t have made a “suggestion” to the coach for whom he was the boss). The fans — yes, the fans have been the ones to point this out. All the while the media simply worked and worked and worked at getting Mike Keenan fired. It didn’t work…
…that is until, AHA, very convenient, Brent Sutter went waaaaaaaaaa, waaaaaaaaaaa, crying like a baby and saying he was homesick and missed his family. Then all of a sudden Keenan (who Darryl was quoted as saying only a year previous, “Mike’s an elite coach. There are only a handful of them in the league. Mike’s not going anywhere”) was expendable as a guy who “didn’t get enough” from his star players, played Kiprusoff “way too much,” and didn’t bring about a “defensive philosophy” (when in the world has Mike Keenan ever been the defensive answer to a team’s woes??????).
Darryl and Brent are both full of, quite frankly, B.S. Yes, with a capital “B” and a capital “S.” This had nothing to do with Mike Keenan, and everything to do with a) deflecting the blame that Darryl was getting from the fans, yet the media had overlooked to that point and b) a chance to take one last crack at this Flames experiment with their brother. I can only hope that Calgary will be decimated with injuries come playoff time again so that Darryl can make excuses for his brother. I can only hope that their lack of a backup goalie kills them so that Kiprusoff has to play the last 40 games just to try to slip into the playoffs. I can only hope they try to tackle the upcoming season with the poor defensive corps they had (other than Regehr and Phaneuf) so that Darryl and Brent can scratch their heads at their golden defensive philosophy gone wrong. Lastly, I can only hope that some other team realizes the job Keenan did in Calgary and gives him another chance. Surely it’ll be someone who realizes that Keenan is not known for his sytematic teaching of the game, nor for his innovative defensive philosophy, but because he’s a winner and because even though the media likes to hint otherwise, just about every one of Keenan’s stops has been as successful or moreso than the person he succeeded as well as the one who succeeded him.
Something stinks…and I know it’s the Sutter brothers and their B.S.
Update: The Bleacher Report is as cynical as I am.
Keep in mind that the Devils’ season ended on April 28th. It took Brent over 40 days to consider his resignation, but only three to jump back in. His deliberation reached a relatively quick end when Mike Keenan was fired on May 23rd.
The dates just don’t add up. He took a very long time to decide about his future (understandable, even though it put the Devils in a very difficult position right before the draft and free agency), then reconsidered only three days later.
Update 2: I am not always a huge fan of Scott Burnside, but I give him credit for being one of the few mainstreamers who gets it:
Last time we checked, the Flames had to play 82 regular-season games, the same as Brent’s old team, the New Jersey Devils. And last time we checked, half of the Flames’ games were on the road, the same number of games away from home as the Devils. And last time we checked our trusty map (not to mention calling colleagues in Calgary), Red Deer, where Brent farms and owns a much-loved junior team, is still about a 90-minute drive from Calgary.
All of which makes us more than a little suspicious of Brent’s motives given that the main reason he waffled on returning to coach the Devils in 2009-10 was that he missed being home and looking after his junior team.
” by Archbishop Chaput of Denver. I came across a very fitting two paragraphs, as they relate to events that are about to unfold in Washington D.C.