Columbus Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella is paying his first visit to Vancouver since the 2013-14 season, when the Vancouver Canucks gave him his marching orders after only a single season behind the bench.
It’s safe to say that Torts, the Vancouver media, and general populous didn’t exactly see eye to eye on many things, as he spent a majority of his time there being drilled by the media and responding as sharply as one can on a daily basis. Compound this with the fact that he led them to a 36-35-11 season, good for 24th overall in the league, you get a mixture for disaster. Another less than memorable moment in the coaches’ career was the debacle he had after the Canucks game versus the Calgary Flames kicked off with a full out brawl mere seconds after the puck dropped and it was said that he tried going into the Flames locker room to, as he stated it, “defend his players”. That, among many other smaller things building up on one another made for the worst year of his career in more ways than just the record.
Vancouver fired him after that lone season and as many would agree, it was best for all parties involved to go their separate ways and reassess where they wanted to go with their respective futures. Vancouver managed to secure a playoffs spot the next year but were eliminated by the Flames in the first round. This year the Canucks have looked like a team with playoff potential finding a way to miss out and make mistakes due to mental lapses.
After sitting out the 2014-15 season, Torts joined the Blue Jackets as the new head coach due to the team firing Todd Richards, who had led the team to an abysmal NHL worst 0-7-0 record to start the 2015-16 campaign. He has seemingly found a new home, and one that has been vastly more accepting than his last two with the Columbus Blue Jackets organization. Despite Torts having a volatile and old school mentality when it comes to coaching, this has shown to be a good move for himself and the Blue Jackets alike.
Since then, the Blue Jackets have a record of 19-25-5 with Tortorella behind the bench, with the exception of two games he had missed due to some broken ribs after Jackets forward Rene Bourque collided with him during a practice. For almost all organizations, that isn’t exactly the sparkling idea of success, but with the start they endured, it looks like a diamond ring to the fan base.
As the Jackets prepare for tonight, it’s obvious to see that a lot of the media attention will be primarily on John Tortorella’s return to Vancouver. But can the Blue Jackets play spoiler and knock off his former club at Rogers Arena? With Tortorella behind the bench, anything can happen.
