In addition to weighing in on a pivotal moment in last night’s game, Darryl Sutter shared his thoughts on proposed rule changes to increase offense in response to conversations that had been aired on the SiriusXM NHL Network earlier today.
On his interpretation of Jake Muzzin engaging Andrew Desjardins:
“Just a natural team thing. It’s no big deal. You know what? Fras got drilled, and Muzzin was right there, and I wouldn’t say he was going in to fight. Muzzin’s not going in [to fight]. You know what? He’s a team guy. He’s going to go in there…it’s not a big deal.”
On the instigating-with-a-visor minor penalty:
“I think it’s an old-fashioned, archaic, antique rule. You know what? They continue to make all these rule changes when they get bored and have these committees, right? But 16 players on our team wear visors, and I’m going to say 16 players on every team wear visors, and we continue to bring visors up when somebody gets hurt. But there’s a rule in the book – first off, would you say the player actually started the altercation, and you get an extra two minutes because he’s got a visor on. It’s pretty much…old fashioned.”
On whether he’s an advocate of making nets larger:
“I’m not. No.”
On whether he’d like to see the size of goalie equipment mandated:
“No. I’ve been on those committees, too, and seen all those experiments. Those are just bored committees. So if you’re going to make the net, make it bigger, and you’re going to take out four rows of seats? Make the ice bigger? And you’re going to make the goalie equipment smaller…they’ve already protected the goalies all they can…in terms of the rules. Put lines on the ice. Rules and icings and all those things in to protect goalies, which was general managers wanted to protect the goalie. We already made his equipment as small as it can get. You know what? The president’s body guards look like they have shirts and ties on, and they have bullet proof vests on underneath…We already did it. These guys are talking about these rules – they were the guys that wanted their players to have equipment that was like sleeping bags. Just think [recently]…about goalies’ equipment. Think of guys like Giguere and guys that used great, big equipment. You can’t make it any smaller….the stuff that they’re using is so light. Somebody must have been bored talking about that. Who started that this morning? [reporter: Adam Proteau asked the question.] Yeah, he would for sure. He would be bored, because he wouldn’t know much about it, for sure…Quite honest, the way goalie equipment standards are right now are really good, because it’s based on size. There are restrictions based on your size and equipment size. You know what, I think those are good rules. But the changing the net size, I’ve seen all those things. And then the next thing that somebody will bring up when they’re bored is ‘square posts’. They tried that one, too, right? They thought it would [by virtue of] angles, square posts or triangle posts would deflect pucks into the net instead of the round going off. I’ve seen all that stuff.”
On whether he felt committee meetings were productive:
“Yep. Really good. But remember, what most of those committees or meetings are about – I could send in ‘Let’s stop and sing the national anthem…or sing God Bless America seven minutes into the third period. Lets everybody stop and do it.’ If it sounds like a good idea, then they have to go to a committee. So if you bring it up, it’s got to go to a committee…‘Why [not], in Canada, with 10 minutes into the third period, why don’t we sing the good old hockey song? Everybody get up?’ It sounds like a good idea.
On whether he’d like to see a larger ice surface:
“Bigger ice surface, less offense, more defense, more neutral zone play. It doesn’t help anything. Go to Europe and watch. A lot of these coaches have brought that over. They’ve been over and they’ve come back here and started playing that. Like, there was Vancouver that played it for a while…they called it ‘torpedo’, or 1-3-1. It just becomes a neutral ice game, just to bounce the puck back and forth. More ice doesn’t open it up at all. Actually, you become more zone-prevent.”
On whether Alec Martinez has been playing ‘timid’:
He’s coming off an injury, so I wouldn’t call it ‘timid’. I mean, did you tell him he was timid? [reporter: I didn’t tell him he was timid.] So why then are you asking me? Do you think he’s timid?…I’d say he’s coming off an injury. Marty’s got to play against 230, 240 pound guys, so he’s got to be quick-in, quick-out. I don’t call that timid. I just think you’ve got to be quick.”
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