Sutter on facing Chicago, scheduling, “circus trips”

Darryl Sutter, on facing the Blackhawks for the first time in 2014-15:
Even though they’re in-conference, if you think about it, the last time we played ‘em was June 1. We played ‘em every other day for, what, 12 days there.

Sutter, on whether he gave time to reflect on a great series:
Yeah, it was. I said that after – it was the best series that I coached in the playoffs, even though I’ve coached a lot a playoff series. But that was, I thought, the best one in terms of it could’ve gone either way, and going the whole distance, and then going into the overtime part of it. So the reflection part of it, you don’t have time because you’re moving right on, but you break it all down, and I’ve done that with Chicago over the summer and done it because they’re still such a benchmark. Even though we’re in different divisions, they’re such a benchmark. We’ve talked to our team about it. You look at that division they’re in, and why the division is like it is now, it’s cause of Chicago, clearly. Reflecting on it is not as a team we beat ‘em, it’s how we played as individuals that you can learn from, because even though we won the series, we had a lot of guys that we really had to be careful how we used ‘em, and how they impacted the series. If you look at it, some guys played a lot, and some guys that you might know didn’t play very much at all.

Sutter, on how long Chicago’s “Circus Trip” has existed:
Ever. Forever. It was there when I [was there]. The circus comes to town. You didn’t call it a ‘circus trip.’ Back then, your schedules, Original Six teams have two long road trips. Other than that, they had their designated days at home. That’s never changed. Remember the league used to be a Wednesday-Saturday-Sunday league, so if you look at who’s got home dates still, and who plays on the road, it’s the Original Six still, if you look at it closely. [Reporter: Back-to-back in the same city?] Well, Saturday in Chicago was always a road game, and you’d play Sunday at home. So you’d always fly home Sunday morning, play Sunday. So you knew your two home games, it was pretty consistent, and your one road game was consistent…so that’s two-to-one. So you’ve got to catch up with two long road trips, and that’s how they’d do it. November-February, I believe. I mean, we got snowed in Thanksgiving in Buffalo.

Sutter, on the smell of the circus at Madison Square Garden:
I always liked that, though, when you’d play in New York…I always liked that smell. It was like the barn. I did. Even when I walk into MSG, I still think of that.