As far as April goes, it was a busy one for the Vancouver Canucks, and for all the wrong reasons. They failed to make the playoffs for the first time in six seasons, fired president and general manager Mike Gillis, and established franchise icon Trevor Linden as his heir. However, there was one pertinent question remaining: what to do about coach John Tortorella?
Well it seems we now have our answer. TSN’s Farhan Lalji, a person who is as much in the know as anyone, reported yesterday that after weeks of speculation, and with four more years still left on his contract, Tortorella will be fired today by the Canucks. Officially announced by the team or not, it’s clear to anyone that the writing is on the wall and that Tortorella’s failed tenure is all but over.
When Tortorella was hired last offseason to replace the departed (and winningest coach in Canucks history) Alain Vigneault, there were essentially two schools of thought that prevailed: that the 2004 Stanley Cup and Jack Adams winner would be able to whip this aging Canucks core into one more playoff run, or that this could be an unmitigated disaster.
For the first few months of the season, the former seemed to be the case. By New Year’s Eve, the Canucks were sitting at 23-11-7 and seemed to be in a relatively comfortable playoff position. Unfortunately, that’s when the wheels began to fall off.
The Canucks had just one win in eight to start the month of January, though they accomplished a series of “moral victories”. The team, beginning to struggle, saw a noticeable change in their style over this stretch of games. It was clear that Tortorella, unsure of how to use his roster to get out of this swan dive (he admitted as much in his end-of-season press conference) was encouraging the Canucks to prove they wouldn’t be out-matched physically against some of the stronger teams in the Pacific division. It was hoped that with stronger physical play, the wins would begin to come.
It didn’t work. In three straight games against Los Angeles, Anaheim and Phoenix, the Canucks were shutout twice and demolished by the Ducks to the tune of 9-1. With frustration at a boiling point, it was time for the Calgary Flames to visit Vancouver on January 18th, a night which spelled the beginning of the end for Tortorella.
For those unfamiliar, yes that was the night when Tortorella lost his mind, tried to physically attack Flames coach Bob Hartley in the visitor’s dressing room after the first period and was subsequently suspended by the NHL for 15 days.
Frankly, more than enough digital ink has been spilled about that incident, but it’s quite clear now in retrospect that any chance Tortorella had to survive as coach began to end that night. Fast forward four months later, and neither he nor his assistants were able to turn the Canucks around. They went 14-19-2 the rest of the way, good enough for 12th in the West.
When all the factors are compiled, the arguments against Tortorella as coach in Vancouver are quite damning. He was accused of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by forcing a team built for puck possession and finesse to play a dump-and-chase, block-the-puck, scrum in the corners type of game. He said he’d give the forwards free reign in the offensive zone, and for the most part he did, but the new defensive system didn’t allow proper transition to offense, and once mighty scoring forwards like Daniel Sedin, Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler looked lost on most nights.
Tortorella has long been accused of riding his top players hard, perhaps harder than they could take, and that was also blatantly obvious this season. At one point Kesler and the Sedins were all in the top four in the NHL (along with Sidney Crosby) for average ice time among forwards. While they claimed it didn’t have a negative affect, I suppose it’s not coincidental that all three missed time with injures (via Sports Injury Alert) and had their worst statistical seasons in many years.
Perhaps worse was how little trust Tortorella put into the younger players on the roster of a team that should have been looking to the future. Former first round picks Jordan Schroeder and Nicklas Jensen rarely got a sniff of quality minutes, and were only ever inserted into the lineup when injuries forced Tortorella’s hand. Same for Zac Dalpe, Darren Archibald and Frankie Corrado. Budding power forward Zack Kassian was relegated to the team’s third line, even though he was the best player on the ice for the last two months of the season (he finished third on the team in goals with 14, despite averaging less than 13 minutes of ice time per game).
The final nail in the coffin was Tortorella forcing Gillis to resolve the goaltending situation. Tortorella chose to start rookie back-up Eddie Lack in the Heritage Classic “outdoor” game at BC Place over franchise goalie Roberto Luongo. True, Lack had been the better goalie in the weeks leading up to the game while Luongo struggled with injuries and inconsistency, but putting Luongo on the bench was a slap in the face to a goaltender who seemed to have rehabilitated his relationship with the franchise.
Just when it looked as though Luongo was settled back into his role as starter and that the team could put the controversy of the last 18 months behind them, Tortorella’s decision brought everything back to the fore again. The fans booed Lack, chanted for Luongo, and within days the greatest goaltender in Canucks history was on his way back to Florida after asking his agent to find a way out of this quagmire. It was a black eye on what should have been a nice little moment in Vancouver sports history.
So now, on the first of May and with the second round of the NHL playoffs set to begin, the Canucks find themselves in an unenviable position: without a general manager and in search of a new coaching staff (it’s assumed that assistants Mike Sullivan and Glen Gulutzan will depart with Tortorella). It may yet prove to be a wise decision on the part of new president Linden, an opportunity to reset the franchise properly during a time it’s at a crossroads. One thing is clear though, they’ll be doing it without Tortorella, whose many missteps over the 2013-14 campaign were just too much to overcome.
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