Category Archives: John Tortorella
While surfing around the NY Post archives recently I came across this quote from Larry Brooks, in 2007, about a soon to be unemployed coach:
Whichever team hires John Tortorella after he, too, is dismissed by the next owner (if not sooner), will be getting one of the elite coaches in all the land
In a recent 30 Thoughts, Elliotte Friedman quoted a GM as saying, “Say what you want, but the Rangers play hard for him.”
Also in his 30 Thoughts column, Friedman writes that the reason John Tortorella has been successful so far is because of his position to treat everyone on the team the same way.
He also writes that Tortorella leaving the locker room to the teams leadership team is another thing that the players like about him.
I thought that was a nice little find about Torts from a column after Tampa started a big change over. I really do think that he is one of the best coaches in the league and that when he gets players to buy in and listen to him, his teams win. I look around the league and there aren’t many coaches I would pick over him.
At ESPN.com, they pick John Tortorella as the top contender for this years Jack Adams Award in their Trophy Tracker.
They look at how the team has dealt with the distractions of going to Europe, playing on the road before MSG was ready, HBO and the injuries to players like Marc Staal.
Other coaches mentioned are Ken Hitchcock and Claude Julien. Tortorella won the award in 2003-04.
I thought he had a shot at being nominated last year, until they started to slide down the stretch, but he will be a lock if the team keeps playing like this. I think that Ken Hitchcock will get a lot of support since he took over a Blues team that was struggled and turned them around.
No Ranger coach has ever won the award.
Darren Dreger tweets that John Tortorella has been fined $30,000 for his comments about the referees after the Winter Classic.
More on his comments here and here.
- Kay says that he thinks Tortorella looks like Fonzie and someone who can do know wrong.
- On his comments, he said that he was too sarcastic and shouldn’t have gone where he did with his comments.
- He emphasizes that it was tongue and cheek and that he didn’t mean to bring the integrity of the game in.
- Torts says “damn right” when asked if he liked that the cameras were out and the Winter Classic was over.
- Tortorella says that his feelings on 24/7 and people in the locker room couldn’t interfere with the organization being in the Winter Classic game. “my stubbornness can’t get in the way of that” He says that it was a great experience
- On the cameras, Torts says the he didn’t censor or limit himself. He says that the cameras really blended in and that he always went about his business. Torts says that he always found out who was mic’d during practice and that he stayed away from them so as not to be on camera.
Update: 5:10PM: Darren Dreger tweets that the fine given to John Tortorella for his comments on the referees following the Winter Classic is “significant”
Update: 12:38PM
Tortorella apologizes for what he thought were tongue in cheek remarks. “I tainted the Classic with my mouth, and I shouldn’t have.”
— Pat Leonard (@NYDNRangers) January 4, 2012
John Tortorella has apologized for his comments about the Winter Classic at practice today. He said he was sarcastic and wrong.#rangers
— Michelle Yu (@MichelleYuSNY) January 4, 2012
Tortorella told Chris Botta and Katie Strang that he spoke with Flyers GM Paul Holmgren about the comments, Colin Campbell and will apologize to the referees in person.
Update: 3:59PM:
No decision expected until tomorrow at earliest on likely NHL punishment for Torts for post-game comments. Thinking fine not suspension.
— Andrew Gross (@AGrossRecord) January 3, 2012
Original Post: Katie Strang of ESPN NY tweets that John Tortorella is expected to be fined for his comments during his post game news conference about the referees.
On the NHL Network, Tortorella said “I’m not sure if NBC got together with the refs or what to turn this into an overtime game. With two good refs I thought the game was reffed horribly. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe they wanted to get into overtime. I’m not sure if they had meetings about that or what. Again they are good guys I just thought tonight it was disgusting in the third period.”
Thought it was obvious Tortorella was kidding about an NBC conspiracy. Officiating was awful. The coach should not be fined.
— Chris Botta (@ChrisBottaNHL) January 3, 2012
Marc Staal skated. Unlike Torts yesterday, says it’s a matter of when he comes back, not if. But no timetable yet.
— Andrew Gross (@AGrossRecord) December 28, 2011
John Tortorella has said countless times that he doesn’t’ want to think about Marc Staal coming back until he is ready and that the team needs to go about it’s business acting like he won’t return. Staal will be back, and maybe before the all-star break with all the improvements that he has had, but Torts only likes to talk about the next game and not look too far ahead. John Tortorella knows that he will be back in the lineup, but he still has weeks of coaching to do before that time and can worry about Staal then.
Sid still having symptoms. Working out lightly
— Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_Trib) December 28, 2011
“I asked you to f—— defend, I’ve seen you f—— defend before and you’re going to do it here. If that’s how we’re going to battle, we’re not going to have a chance to win. Jesus Christ, how much time do we have to talk about it? If that’s all the juice we have as far as competing against that team, we will get killed tonight. And we have two periods here. So I’ve asked you all to buy into how we have to play. If that’s it, we’re f——- done. Pack it up! I know this f—— team isn’t that way. I’ve seen ya! We have 40 f—— minutes to go. Take each shift at a time and chip away. They are not that good in their end zone. And we know our club, that’s the biggest f—— positive is how hard we play. So f—— screw it on straight here. Screw it on and let’s be ready to go each shift at a time. Stiffen up here. Everybody. But I’ll tell you, if you’re not going to be stiff, you’re not going to play. I’m warning you all. This is contest here that’s a good test for us for where we are right now. … Let’s see what we are against a stiff hockey team. Let’s be ready to go here now. C’mon.”
via Pierre LeBrun of ESPN.com
In the New York Post, Larry Brooks quoted Derek Stepan as saying ““I think we have everyone buying into the style we need to win; a hard tempo 
game that enables us to make chances and create chances”
John Tortorella told Andrew Gross at Ranger Rants that everyone buying in is key:
“It’s a huge point as far as your top players, when they start buying in, it goes through the team,” Tortorella said. “But I also look at it another way, our top players see how hard some of our (other) players doing what they’re doing along the walls, and the back pressure and the backchecking. I think the onus is on them too. I don’t just look at it as these players, top players so called but the top players saying we need to do that too and not wait for the puck to come to us.”
John Tortorella says that Ryan Callahan sets the tone for this team.
That is what your captain is supposed to do. It helps a lot when a guy like Brad Richards signs for nine years and $60 million and is doing all the dirty work as well. Richards could have been like so many others and just collected a check, but he has come to work hard, wears a letter on his jersey and is showing everyone what kind of effort it takes to win a Stanley Cup.
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