Sutter: Success `not about an individual’

Neither coach in these Stanley Cup Finals has won the ultimate prize, but both have had success. New Jersey coach Peter DeBoer won the Memorial Cup, the top prize in junior hockey, plus an Ontario Hockey League championship, while Darryl Sutter coached the Calgary Flames to the Finals in 2004. Sutter will look at add another Cup to the family treasure. Two of his six hockey-playing brothers won Cups with the New York Islanders in the 1980s. Duane Sutter won four, in 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1983, and Brent Sutter was a member of the 1982 and 1983 teams. Darryl Sutter isn’t a fan of talking about himself much, but asked about the difficulty of making the Finals as a coach, Sutter did reveal a bit…

SUTTER: “There’s very few that do actually win it. Two of my brothers have won six, and I’ve played in a lot of conference championships and coached in them, and in the Stanley Cup Finals. It’s really difficult. There’s 30 teams now, and it’s really difficult. I know what it takes, what you give up from a personal standpoint, so that’s why it’s good to be here.’’

Sutter has been a tough nut to crack for media members who have discovered the Kings in the past few weeks, who have tried just about everything to get some happy, sunny quotes out of him. In one sound byte, Sutter did an effective job of distilling his philosophy on coaching and, perhaps, dealing with the media.

SUTTER: “It’s really nobody’s business, because everybody that thinks they know you, (they) don’t. When I first came here, people thought it was about yelling and screaming. So that’s not really true. So, what you think is true, you don’t really know. That’s what is important. My responsibility is not for people to know anything about me. It’s to know about my team. That’s what you try to do, because it’s not about an individual. When it’s about an individual, then a team doesn’t have very much success on a consistent basis.’’

That’s the type of attitude that has won over the Kings, even players such as Dustin Penner, who has received more than his share of constructive criticism over the past five-plus months.

PENNER: “He’s great. He’s a Westerner. He’s a down-to-earth guy. He’s simple. It’s, `Work hard, listen and give it your all every time.’ If you do that, as a player, he won’t be mad at you in certain ways, (compared to) guys who aren’t giving what he wants. … We heard he was really intense, but the one thing we kept hearing was that he was fair. He will definitely get on you, but he has good reason, and he will get the best out of you.’’

By way of comparison, there’s general manager Dean Lombardi. While Sutter reveals himself only in small doses, Lombardi is an open book. Penner gave a good evaluation of Lombardi’s leadership style…

PENNER: “Obviously I’ve never been a GM, but I assume it doesn’t always work out how you planned. I’m sure he expected to be here a lot sooner — just like any GM does — that we were, but we’re here now. I think he’s probably the most excited. He has said before that, because he doesn’t have any children, we’re all like his. I’ve never seen a GM, probably, so excited and so personable inside the locker room and here every day, just wanting everybody to succeed. … He’s definitely an emotional guy. I think all good leaders are emotional guys, but it’s controlled emotion. The Dean that you guys see is different than the Dean that we see. We see both, but we see a different side.’’