Ah, Torts. What a year that was
Counting down the 10 most memorable moments from Tortorella’s time in Vancouver
There is a case to be made that John Tortorella, Mike Sullivan and Glen Gulutzan have been doing three of the best coaching jobs in the NHL this season.
It’s amazing when you remember that, not that long ago, they were coaching together, on the same team.
It must have been the best coached team in the past decade, right? Yeah, no. Led by Tortorella, the 2014-15 Canucks were among the most dysfunctional teams to have ever played hockey in Vancouver.
We look at Torts’ Top 10 moments from that season:
1. The locker-room incident
No conversation about Tortorella in Vancouver can end without the locker-room incident.
Calgary Flames head coach Bob Hartley iced his goons to start a game, so Tortorella responded with his. Seconds later, hell broke loose on the ice.
But it was nothing compared to the hard-to-believe theatrics that followed during the first intermission. To this day, the clip of the incident remains riveting.
You see Tortorella try to charge through a mass of Flames, but someone has his collar hooked from behind, like he was a rabid dog trying to break free from his leash.
There’s Kevin Bieksa, whose head appears at the very back. He clearly travelled through the back channel to get a closer look. Then there’s Flames goalie coach Clint Malarchuk, whose nostrils are flaring as he propels himself out of the Flames’ room looking to punch Torts in the face.
It is something to behold, and thankfully there was a video camera recording in that corridor so we’ll never, ever forget.
2. Benching Luongo at Heritage Classic
Tortorella’s most accomplished moment in Vancouver just may be the fact that he’s the one who finally got Roberto Luongo traded.
In the history of the NHL, no goaltender has wanted to start a game less than Eddie Lack wanted to start the Heritage Classic. Luongo had been waiting all year for that moment, the big stage in B.C. Place Stadium. And for reasons no one has ever understood, Tortorella sat a goalie who’s sure to be in the hall of fame.
Tortorella famously said after the game, “I would make the same call.” Really? You embarrassed a great goalie, inspired him to again ask for a trade, and started a string of transactions that forever changed the Canucks.
And for what?
3. The Murphy Bed
Management and Tortorella knocked heads over all kinds of issues, but when the coach started going home every day, skipping out on game-day skates, it drove the organization bananas.
So much so, they built a Murphy Bed — also known as a wall bed — in his office. If he needed an afternoon nap, the coach could now take it at Rogers Arena.
There’s a great clip out there of Willie Desjardins getting his first tour of his new office and the look of “WTF?” on his face when he sees the Murphy Bed is priceless.
4. The Speech
When it was all over, Tortorella made what could have been his biggest contribution to the Canucks.
In his post-mortem press conference, Torts laid it all out there. Prophetically, Tortorella announced that the NHL had become a “young man’s game.”
He said the Canucks were too old, too stale and too obsessed with trying to recreate 2011.
He suggested the organization needed to rebuild.
Of course, instead of heeding the coach’s words, Jim Benning was brought in as general manager to turn things around quickly, in an attempt to squeeze another run out of the Sedin twins.
Wonder what would have happened if Tortorella had been promoted to general manager, instead of fired?
5. Tortorella vs. David Booth
In July, Booth revealed he still has nightmares about Tortorella. These two were oil and water. Booth was the proud hunter and Torts the dog-obsessed animal guy.
There was the time Torts called Booth a weird dude. Another when he chewed him out for being late for a meeting, when he wasn’t at all late.
And, of course, the coach’s comments after a loss in Detroit when he said: “I thought our best forward was David Booth, which is good for him but not good for us.” Ouch.
6. The Alex Edler situation
It is wild, especially considering how successful these coaches have been, that in Tortorella’s one season in Vancouver, Alex Edler and Chris Tanev barely played together.
Other than three games and a few shifts here and there, the team’s best defensive pair was never an option.
Not only did they refuse to play Tanev and Edler together, they spent much of the season playing Edler, a left-shot defenceman, on the right side with Jason Garrison.
The results were awful, and Edler had what many believe to be his worst season as a Canuck. The team was outscored at a 7-3 rate when he was on the ice at even strength.
7. The Sedin thing
This is basically how the season went with Torts and the Sedins.
Torts: I’m going to play my top guys tons. I’m worried about this game, not Game 50.
Media: Uh, you sure you want to do that?
Torts: They’re playing great, we’ll have more off days, fewer practices and keep them fresh. I’m doubling down and will have them kill penalties, too.
Media: Wait, what? They’re well into their 30s and the team just spent five years limiting their ice time, believing it managed fatigue and health while maximizing performance. Is this going to end well?
Of course, it did not end well. The Sedins fell off a production cliff in the second half of the season.
And just about the first declaration that happened when the new management team and coaching staff took over was this: “We’re going to manage the Sedins’ ice time.”
8. The Burrows thing
Communication was never Tortorella’s strong game. Take his relationship with Alex Burrows.
The pair didn’t have any one-onone conversations until the second half of the season, when they exchanged pleasantries after running into each other in a hallway in Montreal.
But it was more than a lack of communication. Tortorella pushed the team at different points to buy out Burrows’ contract.
Had the Canucks listened we’d be missing out on this season, which has been something of a resurgence for the Vancouver legend.
9. Tortorella’s honesty
Give the coach this: He always spoke his mind. Even if it meant him admitting he didn’t know who a Canadian icon was. In this case, it was Sarah McLachlan, who performed at a team function.
He did apologize for having no clue who she was, telling everyone he “lives under a rock.”
10. Cheering for Team Sweden
There were many apologies during Tortorella’s season. The most memorable, however, was when he had to say sorry to an entire country.
The coach had said he wanted Sweden to win the Olympics because he thought it could help turn around the seasons for Edler and Daniel Sedin.
That didn’t fly too well in Canada, where Tortorella soon came out with his mea culpa.
“If I have insulted anybody, that certainly wasn’t my intention and I think all of you know that,” he said. “But it was a careless use of words, and where I should be more cognizant. I want to clear that up.”