Flames coach has a fan in Torts

Respect grew during time with Canucks

The cellphone connection was spotty.

But between crackles and fuzz, both men — John Tortorella, then head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, and Glen Gulutzan, then unemployed — were both impressed with what they were hearing.

“I think I was going over one of the hills in Saskatchewan and lost some cell contact out by the farms,” Gulutzan quipped, reminiscing Wednesday about the details of an over-thephone job interview with Tortorella shortly after he was fired by the Dallas Stars in 2013.

“I was driving home to Hudson Bay and I was talking to John. I was deciding at the time between a couple of organizations. John was talking to me about Vancouver.

“I kept cutting in and out and finally I stopped at some side road where I had reception. He got about 20 minutes into the conversation — my family was waiting in the van — and he says, ‘You know what? I don’t need to talk to anybody else. If you want the job, I’d like to hire you.’ ”

Gulutzan accepted, hung up and climbed back into the van to share the news with his family — that they were moving to the West Coast, where he would join Tortorella and his righthand man, Mike Sullivan, on the Canucks’ coaching staff.

Tortorella was axed after only one winter in Vancouver and is now behind the bench for the Columbus Blue Jackets, while Gulutzan was an assistant with the Canucks for three seasons before being hired as the Flames’ skipper this summer.

“Remember, Sully and I were glued at the hip. We had coached together for a long time, and we both knew that we needed some different blood and different thoughts brought into our foundation as coaches and how we felt about the game,” Tortorella recalled prior to Wednesday’s meeting between the Blue Jackets and Flames at Nationwide Arena.

“Gully was being chased by a lot of people at that point of time. A number of teams were after him. He was driving back home and I called him, and I could tell right on the phone call.

“I could tell, and just through the amount of work I did in asking people about him, that he was the right guy for us.

“Because I think he’s progressive. I think he’s got a really interesting insight to the game. I think he’s a terrific coach. I really do.

“I know it’s been a little up and down with the Calgary, but I tell ya … ”

There were ups and downs that winter in Vancouver, too.

The 2013-14 Canucks were sitting pretty early in the New Year, but the losses would later pile up.

Tortorella briefly lost his marbles after the Flames and Canucks brawled on Hockey Day in Canada, trying to storm into the visitors’ locker-room at the first intermission for an unscheduled meet-andgreet with Gulutzan’s predecessor, Bob Hartley.

“We went through some philosophy things, the three of us, when we were going through the ups and downs in Vancouver, and I do think it made all three of us better coaches going through some of that stuff,” Tortorella said.

“Gully always says that. He says, ‘I’m a better coach now than I was in Dallas.’ It may not be in the results yet, but he is.

“Terrific guy. Terrific family. Very intellectual about the game, and that’s where the game is going. A lot of different things are being brought into coaching, and I think Gully is on top of those.”

They’re now coaching in different cities — Sullivan guided the Pittsburgh Penguins to a Stanley Cup parade last June — but the former colleagues still talk shop.

“I learned a ton from both of those guys,” Gulutzan said. “I would consider Torts and Mike lifelong friends. I keep in contact with both of them, talked to both of them two or three times already this year, share ideas and thoughts.

“Watching Columbus, I know Torts’ fingerprints and what he looks for and what he likes in his teams. And same with Sully (in Pittsburgh). A lot of those ideas are here in Calgary. We just haven’t yet fully gotten the results we want.”