- Rhett Warrener says Darryl Sutter put three contract options on a whiteboard and told him to pick one
- Warrener played 231 of his 714 NHL games in Calgary with Sutter running the front office
- Read below for why Warrener wanted to fire his agent over that contract
Darryl Sutter did not negotiate contracts. He handed out a multiple-choice test.
Rhett Warrener closed out his career in Calgary with Sutter on the other side of the desk, and the former defenseman went on the Barn Burner podcast this week to describe what those meetings actually looked like.
“It was extremely easy. I walked in the room, there was a two-, a three-, and a four-year deal on the board. He goes, ‘You can have that, or that. Call your agent, let me know.’”
Watch Warrener walk through it:
Warrener had no real issue with the method. His issue was the invoice that showed up afterward, since he still owed his agent a cut of a deal that took one conversation and zero phone calls.
“I didn’t like paying my agent three per cent. That’s what the phone call should have been. I should have phoned and said, ‘Officially, you’re fired.’”
Sutter took over Calgary’s bench in 2002-03, moved upstairs after the 2005-06 season and ran the front office until 2010, so he held the lineup card and the chequebook at the same time. Warrener arrived in 2003 and played 231 games in a Flames sweater, the last chunk of a 714-game career that also covered Florida and Buffalo.
Try that whiteboard on a restricted free agent today. Cutter Gauthier has 159 NHL games to his name and turned down four years at $13 million a season from the Ducks this month, a report from Paul Shaheen. Anaheim is sitting on roughly $9 million in cap space while it waits him out.
The ceiling moved again two days ago. Cale Makar signed eight years at $20.4 million a season in Colorado, the first $20 million player the league has ever had.
Three numbers on a whiteboard would not get Makar’s agent to pick up the phone.
