Just throwing this out there -- Dustin Brown was on the Players Tribune last week and talked about the 2011/12 season (when Sutter took over mid-season and the Kings won the Cup as an 8th seed). He mentions the play of Jonathan Quick as being a key factor, but also talked about the impact of Sutter:
Quote:
And then in 2011–12 we came out of the trade deadline still outside the playoffs with just two months to go. It didn’t make sense, we had the talent and we knew we could get to the playoffs. It just wasn’t working.
Then we added Jeff Carter. Then Tim Leiweke spoke to me. And then we got hot, and we never cooled off.
We snuck into the playoffs as the eighth seed. We had to play Vancouver — the Presidents’ Trophy winners – in the first round. I remember toward the end of Game 1, Mike Richards absolutely obliterated Alex Burrows in front of their bench. We were up 3–2 with under a minute to go and were holding on and Mike stepped up and made a huge play. And after that, it just felt like we had the edge on them.
We found a different way to win every series that year. Quickie was unbelievable, like out-of-this-world good. It was the best goaltending I had ever seen in my life. Darryl Sutter had taken over as coach in December and he really made a big difference in the playoffs. He pumped a lot of emotion into our game.
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Link:
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/du...angeles-kings/