I’ll say this — as was noted, this isn’t the first time Darryl has given an abrupt, snarky answer to one of Salim’s questions. Other reporters have had similar exchanges with him at times (poor Kristen Anderson). I’m personally not a fan of Salim for reasons I won’t get into here; interestingly, I went and looked at Salim’s Twitter and he recently noted that he and Darryl have had some “pleasant interactions off-camera”:
https://twitter.com/user/status/1612177239818506243
Now, I don’t know if something happened recently to sour the relationship (I doubt it since the answer he gave to Salim a few days ago — about Pelletier no less — was quite positive and informative). But what I do know is (i) I’m not surprised in the least that Sutter wasn’t interested in gushing about Pelletier’s debut today, and (ii) Sutter hates taking about the performance of individual players to the media, especially young players who are still developing. Depending on the context it makes for an interesting news story — Francis was on it immediately— but this fits Sutter’s MO like a glove (whether its still viable in today’s NHL is open for debate, and judging by the reactions here there are plenty on both sides).
P.S: If you watch the presser, he was asked about becoming the Flames coaching wins leader today. He couldn’t care less about that — instead he talked about Game 7 against Tampa and how he wanted to win that one. There is only one thing Sutter wants to accomplish and — like it or hate it — that’s how he’s going to go about his business.