On May 1, Vancouver Canucks head coach John Tortorella was fired with four years remaining on his contract.
I like Torts, and back when the talk started that he might be fired I was strongly against it. As a matter of fact, I wrote an article called “Canucks face a season of change,” more or less an evaluation of the 2013-14 Canucks, which featured my opinion that Torts should stay (at the expense of GM Mike Gillis — who was fired as well).
Torts’ strengths, as I’ve said before, are quite well suited to where the Canucks are going. He has a good track record of developing prospects and youth during his previous stints on the New York Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Zack Kassian has already taken strides this season, and with prospects like Bo Horvat and Nicklas Jensen, who shined during the last stretch of games, the Canucks need a coach who can develop youth.
In addition, he took the Lightning from mediocrity to a Stanley Cup during his tenure, and guided the Rangers to four playoff appearances in his five seasons with them, including making it to the conference finals. The year he was let go he took them to the second round, and was only a year removed from the conference finals.
The Heritage Classic Luongo snub was probably the one definite error in Tortorella’s short tenure.
If anything, his season with the Canucks is an anomaly on his resume, and with factors such as injuries, an aging core, and a team that has been down trending since 2011, it would be easy to excuse his performance.
Many players, though, also had a noticeably weaker year. This includes the Sedins, who in hindsight, may have been a mistake to put on the penalty kill, with Henrik breaking his ironman streak of 679 games.
The Heritage Classic Luongo snub was probably the one definite error in Torts’ short tenure. He not only forced Gillis to trade Roberto Luongo, but this also appeared to contribute to the continuing early 2014 tailspin that cost the Canucks the playoffs (although of no fault to rookie goaltender Eddie Lack).
All in all, I probably would have kept the coach at least until the next season, only to consider his dismissal if the Canucks got off to a miserable start.
But I do respect that this is a new regime making new decisions, rather than Gillis just trying to save his job. It seems that with the amount of time it took to fire Tortorella that some serious thought went into it, and with new president Trevor Linden’s prior experience as a player, he can probably pick up things in the dressing room, things that we might not necessarily see on TV.
In addition, whoever Linden picks to be his GM can now truly put his own stamp on the team, starting with a new coach.
No matter what happens, good or bad, next season will be an exciting one for the Canucks. If in the end there is only one winner in this, it will likely be player David Booth, who has probably avoided a buyout on the account of two pricey firings.
