Darryl Sutter held his first practice as the new coach of the Calgary Flames on Tuesday, and the players said they noticed a difference.
“There was no messing around,” forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “The meeting was getting a few points across that we want to fix and want to improve on. A lot of it has to do with protecting the middle, protecting our goalie, protecting our net front, and playing more offense, bearing down on our chances and putting games away when we have the chance to.
“We have a guy who is a proven winner. He’s coming in with a winning mentality. That’s what’s exciting.”
Sutter was hired Thursday, replacing Geoff Ward. Due to COVID-19 testing protocols and personal business on his farm, he was unable join his players in person until Tuesday.
Sutter’s second tenure in Calgary will begin when the Flames host the Montreal Canadiens at Scotiabank Saddledome on Thursday (9 p.m. ET; SNW, TSN2, RDS, NHL.TV). He did not coach a 3-2 loss at the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday and a 4-3 shootout loss to the Ottawa Senators on Sunday; assistant Ryan Huska coached the Flames in each game.
On Tuesday, Sutter ran a fast-paced 45-minute workout.
“Practice was good,” defenseman Christopher Tanev said. “It was fast. It was up-tempo. Guys were moving. I mean, definitely the best practice we’ve had in a while. … Just the pace of the practice. Guys were moving. Puck was moving. Coach stressed playing faster. That’s something we have to be better at. It started today.”
Calgary (11-12-3) is in sixth place in the seven-team Scotia North Division; the Flames are 4-7-2 in their past 13 games after a 7-5-1 start. The top four teams in the division qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Sutter said he knows he will be unable to make wholesale changes because of a 56-game schedule this season. Instead, he said he wants to refine their game.
“Just to reinforce some areas we can get better at,” Sutter said. “With the way the schedule is, there’s not much practice time so to be able to get today and tomorrow in and reinforce, do some things in the room in terms of X’s and O’s, things we can get better at, I think that’s kind of my priority. And obviously to get ready for Montreal.”
After a prepractice meeting, Sutter was on the ice for 52 minutes, mostly observing and taking the opportunity to have several 1-on-1 conversations with players.
“I wanted to make sure we were clear on what we were trying to do,” Sutter said. “Everybody was in early and we had a good meeting and went over much as we could without overloading them. And then go out on the ice and get to work, and it was a good vibe, a good feeling. It was good to be in there and it’s nice to be back in the locker room again.
“It’s good to have the flaming ‘C’ back on again. … To come back into the Saddledome is special.”
The 62-year-old coached the Flames from 2002-06, helping them reach the 2004 Stanley Cup Final, where they lost in seven games to the Tampa Bay Lightning. He is 634-467-101 with 83 ties in 18 seasons as an NHL coach with the Chicago Blackhawks (1992-95), San Jose Sharks (1997-2002), Flames and Los Angeles Kings (2011-17), with whom he won the Stanley Cup twice (2012, 2014).
Now that Sutter has gone through a practice and his hands-on time has begun, he said there have been no surprises and that he liked the attentiveness from the players Tuesday.
“The system is fine,” Sutter said. “It’s the execution within it and there’s two or three things, areas in there, that I think I can help the guys with and they’ll be good at it. That’s not an issue.
“I have a really good handle on how they play and how they have to play and things we talked about. I think the guys were really trying to bring that into their practice. That’s more of what I was watching and that’s what stood out more than anything. They were trying to do the things we talked about getting better at.”
NHL.com Independent Correspondent Aaron Vickers contributed to this report