Tyle Toffoli, now with the New Jersey Devils, spoke recently with the cast of The Spittin’ Chiclets podcast and was asked about his time in Calgary, specifically his relationship to former coach Darryl Sutter. As Flames fans are aware, the Sutter experiment was a complete disaster in Calgary, with the coach eventually being fired, a number of key players being traded, and the newest members of the team experiencing ridiculous drop-offs in production.
Toffoli spoke specifically about incidences while he was there, demonstrating why it didn’t work out and explaining why Calgary’s 2022-23 season took such a southward turn.
Noting that Sutter liked playing mind games with the players, Toffoli cited the fact that the Flames don’t have their own practice facility and that when the team needed extra reps, Sutter would threaten them with having to travel to the WinSport facility where Hockey Canada does their training around 30 minutes outside the city. “If we had a bad first period, he would mumble, ‘I guess we have to go to WinSport tomorrow.” He added, “It would be like 0-0 and he would tell Vlady [Daniel Vladar] to get ready to go in and we’re like, it’s 0-0 and he would go, Marky’s [Jacob Markstrom] not ready to play tonight.” Of course, the players knew that Markstrom was the only reason they were still in the game. “There’s a reason it’s 0-0, Marky has like 10 saves and we haven’t touched the puck this whole period.”
Toffoli said it was little things like that and all the mind games that Sutter did all of the time that wore on players and got old. He noted that Sutter did it in Los Angeles too. As the players got sick of being treated that way, they started to tune out and the change happened.
The Old Ways Don’t Always Work
Sutter was noted as a coach that would try to pull off that kind of relationship with his players and while it suited some, it clearly didn’t suit others. The old-school approach of threatening players or talking around them without direct instruction or feedback is not the way of today’s modern NHL coach. Toffoli seems to be suggesting that Sutter’s approach is no longer effective with the younger generation and it wasn’t appreciated.
It would make sense that Sutter was moved out. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is why it took so long to make the change, especially in light of the fact the exit interviews with the players were likely not very positive when it came to their feedback on the coach.
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