John Tortorella Ain't Goin' Nowhere, Signs 2-Year Extension In Columbus
There are plenty of teams in the NHL who will be entering the season with a new coach this year. Calgary brought in Bill Peters. Carolina promoted Rod Brind’Amour. The Dallas Stars hired Jim Montgomery. Both New York teams will have a new coach with the Islanders hiring Barry Trotz and the Rangers bringing in David Quinn. And then to replace Barry Trotz, the Capitals promoted Todd Reirden. So that’s 7 teams with a new coach to start the season, but the Columbus Blue Jackets won’t be one of them as they just handed Torts a new 2-year extension. Here are some numbers from the press release.
Tortorella is the franchise’s all-time leader in wins and points percentage as he has guided Columbus to a 129-87-23 record (.588 points percentage) in 239 games since being named head coach on Oct. 21, 2015. He has led the Blue Jackets to appearances in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in each of his first two full seasons behind the bench, marking the first back-to-back post-season berths in club history.
In 2016-17, he won the Jack Adams Trophy as the NHL’s Coach of the Year after Columbus posted the best record in franchise history with a 50-24-8 mark (108 pts.), including a 16-game winning streak from Nov. 29, 2016 to Jan. 3, 2017 that fell one win shy of the NHL record of 17 set by the 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins.
In the last 2 years, the Blue Jackets have lost in the first round of the playoffs to the eventual Stanley Cup winners. They lost in 5 to Pittsburgh in 2017 and then lost in 6 to Washington last year after going up 2-0 in the series on the road. Those sons of bitches. They had chalk drawn around half of Washington’s body already. All they had to do was finish off the job and we could all still make jokes about Washington never making it out of the 2nd round. But after winning 2 games on the road in overtime, they lost 4 straight like a bunch of bitches. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive them for that.
But yeah so John Tortorella has had a decently okay stint in Columbus so far. A Jack Adams trophy and back-to-back playoff appearances. Todd McLellan hasn’t been able to do that and he has Connor McDavid on his roster so you have to give Torts his credit there. With that being said…I’m going to call my shot here and say that John Tortorella doesn’t get the chance to finish out this new extension.
And that’s not because I don’t like John Tortorella. I actually love the shit out of Torts. I love him in the same way that people love their unapologetically politically incorrect grandfathers. I love how pissed off Torts gets. I love what a dick he is to the media. I love that if there was ever going to be a time in the National Hockey League where two coaches go out to center ice and start throwing hands, I know that John Tortorella would be one of them. He is a mad man. He is a lunatic. But he also seems like a guy who is under the impression that the Cold War is still going on and probably doesn’t get along too well with the Russians on the roster. Which might become an issue because Russians are the most important pieces to the Blue Jackets’ roster right now with Sergei Bobrovsky and Artemi Panarin, and both of those dudes are in the final year of their contract right now. There have been rumors all summer long about Panarin requesting a trade out of Columbus and there hasn’t been any talks about the Blue Jackets getting an extension done for Bobrovsky anytime soon. You lose those 2 guys and John Tortorella is going to be working a nice little ass groove into that hot seat.
Here’s the thing. I just think that in order for Torts to be a Stanley Cup winning coach again, he needs to have a roster full of 23 good ol’ North American boys. It’s a shame that Pacioretty ended up in Vegas because I think that would have been a great get for Torts. Swap out Panarin for Pacioretty instead of losing the bread man for nothing in free agency next summer? Give Torts an American who he’s worked with before with Team USA? Match made in heaven right there. But in the meantime, let’s just be thankful that we still get 2 more years of Torts in the NHL. The man is a certified gem.