John Tortorella fired as Rangers head coach
After a second-round exit from the playoffs, the Rangers have fired head coach John Tortorella.
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3 min read
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The New York Rangers have fired head coach John Tortorella after four and a half seasons behind their bench.
While the news is certainly big, it is not as if it comes completely out of left field. The Rangers had very high expectations coming into this season, seen by many as the preseason favorites to win the Stanley Cup. Instead, they struggled through the regular season, needing a strong finish to secure a playoff spot. New York got through the Washington Capitals in the first round but lost in five games to the Bruins, ending their season short of where they went in 2012 (the conference finals) and leaving them and their fans with a disappointing taste in their mouths.
"There wasn't one specific reason that I decided to make this choice," GM Glen Sather said. "It was the choice of how we're going to get better. "
In recent years, the Rangers have had an increasing amount of offensive talent added to the team to try to give long-suffering goalie Henrik Lundqvist some support. While they had some success in the regular season, the offense diminished greatly in the postseason, when it mattered most.
The lack of offense in the Tortorella era was no more evident than the team's struggles on the power play. They have changed players on the man advantage over the years, but the one constant has been the coaching. Their inability to do anything with an extra man on the ice was crushing -- it wasn't just not scoring but literally having too many power plays go in reverse. It's safe to expect the next coach will be somebody who can improve their offensive approach, particularly on special teams.
The biggest criticism of Torts' on-ice managing seemed to stem from the idea of trying to fit square pegs into round holes. It always felt like -- again, especially in the playoffs -- he was changing the players to fit the system instead of the other way around.
There is no denying that Tortorella has a pedigree as a good coach in the NHL. The highlight was leading the Lighting to the 2004 Stanley Cup, but his act had appeared to run thin in New York. Not only is it the gruff relationship that he has with the media -- which really wouldn't have mattered if the Rangers were winning more -- but suggestions of it running thin with his players as well.
According to Elliotte Friedman of the CBC, Lundqvist's comments this week when he was non-committal on returning to the Rangers "changed everything." The logical conclusion from that matches what has been rumored a bit over the years, that Tortorella and Lundqvist didn't have the world's great relationship. The suggestion is that if they had to make a choice between coach or goalie, they took the goalie.
Still, Tortorella was on shaky ground going into the postseason. Despite the fact that he is the only coach besides Darryl Sutter who made it to the second round of the playoffs in each of the past two seasons, the Rangers fell short of what was expected. Sather spent big money on the roster that carried such high hopes, yet the Rangers didn't make an appearance in the Stanley Cup Final and appeared to be going the wrong direction.
All that said, Sather isn't free of criticism here at all. The team was two wins from the Cup Final last year, and they traded away depth players for the scoring of Rick Nash. He wasn't bad this season, but the team suffered from the lack of depth and traded Marian Gaborik to reacquire some, a virtual wash in the two trades (both with Columbus, no less). That's to say there are a few issues with the team still that coaching won't instantly solve.
The attention will now turn to the next coach. And considering we're talking about the Rangers, you know they will be picking from the biggest names available. It took a total of about five minutes for the suggestions of fired Canucks coach Alain Vigneault to be mentioned as well as former Sabres boss Lindy Ruff.
In his time with the Rangers, Tortorella had a 171-105-29 record. In the postseason, his Rangers were 19-25, their best finish being a six-game loss to the Devils in last season's Eastern finals.
But let's not forget Torts' other legacy with the Rangers ... the press conferences. Here's one for old time's sake (it's so hard to pick just one!).
