Coach trade! Rangers get Vigneault who had, as they say, "lost the room" in Vancouver and the Canucks get Tortorella who has turned some expensive and highly skilled teams in New York into shot-blocking, net-clogging underachievers... who don't like him. Nobody really says they don't get along with their coach but I think the best thing BOTH teams will get out of this deal will be the coaches farewell parties. (to which neither coach will be invited)
I like one comment by Henrik Sedin I read about this. He said something like it doesn't matter who the coach is, a player will play well if he wants to. Sounds like he can't wait to work with Torts! Thing is BOTH Sedins are in option years so you can bet they will want to play their best next season. Tortorella will in all likelihood get undeserved credit when that happens. One comment I have heard so often I am almost sick of it is, "He makes the players accountable." Really? What exactly does that mean? And is it even true? I know he has no qualms about benching big name players when he feels they aren't playing his style. He has already said the Sedins will be killing penalties and blocking shots. Plowing a field with a Ferrari.
The guy strikes me as an egotistical loudmouth. And not just because he's from Boston. Boston! Don't we hate them for stealing the Stanley Cup our Canucks rightfully earned a few years ago? Boston?! That's like George Bush coaching the Taliban. Even players he has coached in the past who LIKED him say things like there needed to be buffers between Tortorella and the players. The Canucks Booth have some Booth floaters who need a kick in the ass but Booth is this what the whole team needs? The only way I might support this is if Torts wanted to play the chance taking, offensive style that won him the Cup AND coach of the year when he was with the Lightning. If a player came to his office saying, "Coach, I'm getting tired of scoring and winning so much. I wanna play more defensively responsible." Then, yes, give him the belicose, belligerant bastard you see at the post loss interviews.
Look, when the Canucks won two straight President's Trophies for best record in the league they were also years when Daniel and Henrik were scoring champs, the Canuck power play was number one and team scoring was at the top of the league. Until the playoffs. They got within a game of glory by playing a ludicrously opposite defensive style forced onto them by the coach. And STILL almost won the Cup. But they didn't. And they have had a few years to wonder if they might have been better off playing the way they had won all season long. How do you think this club, made up of mostly the same scarred for life players, will react to yet another blowhard preaching defence to a team with skill to burn? How? The Canucks won one game in two playoff years under Vigneault STILL stagnating their skills. That's how. And this is a five year deal! I can't take five years of one-nothing losses. Or even wins!
But there may be good news. Tortorella seemed to genuinely regret some of his infamous coaching antics that were caused by conflict between him and his players. Solution? How about coaching a team where the players, the G.M. and for the love of Don Cherry the FANS all want an offensive style that is the only way you have ever coached successfully? Seems like a no brainer to me. But we shall see...
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