Tortorella: Canucks Are Getting Old

[oldnews]

If that's Tortorella's season ending address, I quite simply do not want to see him back next year.

"I gave the room to the players to too much extent."

But, but that's my fault. 'I'm not blaming them' he says.... Blame may not be the word.

"I needed to be pounding away at the details. I think that hurt us."

"I needed to bang away more. You guys think I'm hard. I wasn't hard enough."

"I miscalculated in being stricter."

I simply don't have much tolerance for the resounding implication that the problem was not enough Tortorella. I am absolutely unconvinced that more Tortorella is an acceptable answer. I haven't been more annoyed with Tortorella since the day he arrived here. He had won me over more than I expected, but this interview spent all of it. Not a doubt in my mind that he has to go.

"I felt from day one that it's stale."

Tortorella can try to sell this as 'honesty' that has nothing to do with blaming his players, his GM or saving his own job, but it's the kind of honesty that, coming from a coach, imo just even further lost him whatever little may have remained for him in that room. Underplaying and undervaluing the quality of your roster is self-preservation whether you own it or not.

"The team needs to be retooled."

You weren't hired to GM. You were hired to coach. I can't remember the last time I heard a coach go on at such length about the necessities that must be accomplished by the GM and President.

There were enough highly problematic aspects of the coaching to deal with - the fact that Tortorella spent more time on the roster, the core, the lack of depth.... In the end I think he himself, ironically, isn't as accountable as the appearances of comments like 'that's on me....I didn't do what I do enough'... You lost me as well, coach - entirely - 100%.

"If I'm here I want to play four lines."

But from day 1 went with a three line approach. Sorry, the contradiction is too loud.

"I did the things I needed to do to try to win games. We lack depth. It's not being critical, it's the truth."

"I don't think I played the Sedins too much."

But the core is old.

Why didn't the team score? Same answer. Nothing to do with gameplanning, systems, style, or getting the best out of players. It's just the "honest reality".

Here's some more honest reality - you lacked coaching answers - and you still lack coaching answers.

"The team is older. It's trending....You have to understand the team is trending. It's getting older. You have to stop thinking about 2011. You may have to slide sideways...a bit of a rebuild. It's the truth."

Good bye. The honest reality is that coaching was stale and needs a retool/rebuild. It needs to get more enthusiastic. The core and youth needs to be surrounded with more enthusiastic coaching. The systems may need a bit of rebuilding as well.

John Tortorella's answer seems to be that he didn't John Tortorella enough - and to give a whole lot of GMing advice that is contradictory - flattering the core and then flattening the core.

"I think I help players young or old in the pushing."

"I made a couple huge mistakes early in the year with a couple veteran players that I corrected right away... because I knew it wasn't going to work that way.

"I'm going to do it that way. I don't think, I just don't think I did enough of it this year."

"It's just holding them accountable. I did not do a good enough job holding personnel accountable in the details of our game at a crucial part of our season."

I think you need to hold yourself more accountable - for the numerous poor decisions you made, and they're not going to be summed up under a simplistic explanation that you didn't keep your foot to the pedal. It runs so much deeper than that.

Here's one - 'I lost entire control of myself and attempted to assault the opposing coach, resulting in a suspension...where I literally had absolutely no input, no pedal to push or details to share and hold players accountable for. Completely self-sequested for a crucial stretch there.'

Moreover, who - on one hand, thinks and says that the team is old and trending, but at the same time, literally runs that core into the ground with some of the biggest minutes in the NHL, combined with perhaps the absolutely most gruelling travel and play schedule in the NHL? 28 back to backs in 60 games - entirely and 100% forseeable by looking at a schedule! You can't escape that simple contradiction. Blame it on depth - you didn't think much of your depth and you didn't get much out of your depth players. You had no confidence in the depth - how were they supposed to give you some? That is not very good coaching, from either a morale standpoint, or a team building standpoint. You threw your core and your depth under the bus. What else is there?

The GM has already been fired. Why not give the next one some honest reality and advice? But what did we learn about the coaching? Tortorella was not Tortorella enough. Ok. Sorry, not going to make the grade imo.

"I think we've got a really good core here. But I think we need to surround it with some enthusiasm, youth, and build that way."

On the one hand, it's fine to throw a much riper Jensen straight onto the top line, but play Kassian more than 12 minutes? Not this coach. That's not how he does things. Gotta bring him along the right way. Jensen on the other hand... meh.

and then...

"I think some of the core needs to change."

Repeat it again, so it bears repeating - you are sharing a hell of a lot of public GMing talk, and not much or enough coaching talk. Didn't like comments about the team's on ice style - but doesn't hesitate to make numerous comments about how the GM needs to be proceed.

Just a small irrelevent bit. Despite the numerous 'reality' references, the irony is that the team hasn't been stuck in 2011 for some time now. The team stopped spending futures and started buying futures some time ago. The words bigger and younger have been live issues for some time. The prospect pool is vastly improved over the past few years, and right on track in spite of this retroactive prophecy. The team will have much more youth available in the very near future. It's not a matter of changing courses because Tortorella snapped his reality fingers. This is yesterday's news.

"Ed's a guy that I didn't get to."

Or did you perhaps actually get to him? Become part of his problems? Is Edler the type to respond well to being berated publicly? Probably not.

"I did not do my job well enough to get him [Edler] back. I'm not sure if he's going to be a 45-50 point guy consistently..."

Is that going to happen with you miscasting him as the team's shutdown defenseman? Probably not.

If I were Trevor Linden, I'm not sure I'd have to hear what the players have to say. I've heard enough. The retool begins immediately and at the coaching position.

[DeNiro]

Tortorella trying to say all the right things to save his job.

Unfortunately his coaching record will do all the talking for him.

[shazzam]

Well he is right, Sedins/burrows cannot carry the offense anymore. When was the last time such a old forward core won the cup?

[J529]

I respect Torts for telling it like it is. Canucks are and have been stale for awhile. I also like the fact too when he stated that everyone needs to forget about 2011 Finals and get over it. This is why I like Torts and was all for him being hired. He tells it like it is. It's like everyone else can't accept it.

[oldnews]

You know what's getting old...?..Tortorellas systems,....singling out individual players for criticism (on the bench an otherwise)...listening to him making apologies, for doing or saying something stupid ,and saying he's learned from it ...etc..

Yes, and his one answer to all the problems - that he made the mistake of underTortorellaing this year - has already grown old.

[oldnews]

Watch the Torts interview before you say you want him gone from a misconstrued TSN article.

My god people.

I'm no fan of TSN by any stretch of the imagination, but what part was misrepresented?

The interview came accross worse than the article imo - Tortorella actually went further than the article implied, and repeated himself enough times to leave little question that those quotes represent his opinions on the matter.

[Pavelinden]

i like how everyone including the media completely forgot about last year..... just talked about how great we were winning the pres cup 2 years in a row and look at where we are now...... well last year we were 2 wins better than 9th place CBJ and we played in a far easier division.... only guy ive heard talk about this is lebrun who said its damn hard to steer a sinking ship...and torts came onto a team already heading in this direction before him... then add on a tougher division ... and a ton of injuries ... and no real changes made to the floundering roster and what did you people expect? torts was going to wave a magic wand and the whole team was going to climb in the way back machine and play like they did 4 years ago??

What a Beauty post.

[combover]

yeah the teams getting older does that mean that they can't score and get hurt every other night nope. but a system that put the "aging"(early 30's hardly old) star players at risk is more the problem. Torts has guys that earned big money scoring and being creative not by killing penalties blocking shots and getting over played to the point of uselessness. Torts is the the problem his boring garbage style of play combined with is own arrogance that its the "aging" stars are the problem. weird every top player on this team has there worst season point wise and injury wise since torts became the head coach that a big coincidence.

if Torts isn't gone by September i would bet he's gone by Christmas. this team won't improve under this kind of coaching unless u believe competing for first over all draft pick is an improvement.

[Blackberries]

This team was trending down before torts got here.

[DeNiro]

This team was trending down before torts got here.

And he accelerated that trend right into the ground.

[canucklehead44]

We are the 10th youngest team in the league. Boston is the oldest, Pittsburgh is third oldest.

The core is aging but this team isn't old. That said, giving insane amounts of ice time to the twins early on probably wasn't the wisest since they are 33 and not 27.

I think with young guys coming in we have the opportunity to role four lines next year, three once injuries hit (and thus being better prepared since our "fourth line" to start the year will be moving up from 12 to 15 minutes, vs 5 to 12 and adding all the minutes to the top lines).

[Mackcanuck]

What I get from that interview is an arrogant man blaming everything and anything on anybody but himself.

His philosophy is, I am right and everybody else is wrong.

I find it strange that all the players interviewed took ownership of this debacle of a season,

But Tororella choses to accept only the smallest,slightest minimum of responsibility.

If Tortorella gets fired,( I trully hope he does, we can do so much better than him)

It is of his own incompetence,

If he stays, and I hope he does not, what big time UFA is going to sign to play under this nutcase!

Think about it!

I don't want this guy anywhere near our young players.

Enough damage has already been done to this team under his misdirection

[Pavelinden]

The twins accepted the ice time with open arms. The injuries would of happened regardless.

But ya they are 33 not 27 Torts did over do it.

Hey I'm not a Torts lover, I just think firing another coach the year after canning another one is stupid.

Also, I think what he did with Kass was great for his development.

[iinatcc]

The absolute stupidity of some peoples children....

Torts was the saviour and the end all be all until mid January. Do we have to bump some threads to prove that some of you were on his jock for about 3 or 4 full months out of the season?

http://forum.canucks.com/topic/352351-pgt-canucks-3-2-flyers/

Just to quote some of the posts here

Popular 5+ post

Tortorella is better than AV for one major reason. He changes the lines up. AV was always too scared to split the Sedins.

Oh and Torts with another huge pay off coaching decision.

Torts is an amazing coach.

And

1. He finally put Kesler on the wing and look what happened?

2. He takes time outs when his team is flat.

3. He uses his brain and adjusts.

* he referring to Torts

nice to see a coach that is willing to make the changes necessary to win. Torts coaching wins another one.

... from another post

torts is like breath of fresh air...

I like the twins on the penalty kill as well, they get to be involved in the game more and show some character/workmanlike minutes

[oldnews]

[Tearloch7]

A bit premature, old fella .. WAIT FOR IT!

[J529]

What I get from that interview is an arrogant man blaming everything and anything on anybody but himself.

His philosophy is, I am right and everybody else is wrong.

I find it strange that all the players interviewed took ownership of this debacle of a season,

But Tororella choses to accept only the smallest,slightest minimum of responsibility.

If Tortorella gets fired,( I trully hope he does, we can do so much better than him)

It is of his own incompetence,

If he stays, and I hope he does not, what big time UFA is going to sign to play under this nutcase!

Think about it!

I don't want this guy anywhere near our young players.

Enough damage has already been done to this team under his misdirection

Torts is no more arrogant then Gillis who threw Torts under the bus and blammed him for how the season went in what turned out to be his final address on 1040. Unbelievable. Gillis for the first and only time finally decides to man up and take responsibility for the state of this team (which was last ditch attempt to save his job and save face) and utter mess he's made which started following 2011 Finals and continued on through 2 coaches (AV, Torts). He didn't address the biggest problem for this team and that was scoring. To further support totally arrogance of Gillis is story James Duthie tells about during 2011 Finals and how Gillis thought they had the Cup all wrapped up and won. Another instance is where Franciso asked Gillis to meet with Quinn to discuss having him return to organization in some capacity which never happened.

I find it pretty funny coming from member who referred to Portland Winterhawks as "Cheaterhawks" How exactly did they cheat?

[tas]

The twins accepted the ice time with open arms. The injuries would of happened regardless.

But ya they are 33 not 27 Torts did over do it.

Hey I'm not a Torts lover, I just think firing another coach the year after canning another one is stupid.

Also, I think what he did with Kass was great for his development.

how could it possibly be more stupid than keeping a terrible coach just because you fired one the previous year?

[Mackcanuck]

Torts is no more arrogant then Gillis who threw Torts under the bus and blaming him for how the season went in what turned out to be his final address on 1040. Unbelievable. Gillis for the first and only time finally decides to man up and take responsibility for the state of this team (which was last ditch attempt to save his job and save face) and utter mess he's made which started following 2011 Finals and continued on through 2 coaches (AV, Torts). He didn't address the biggest problem for this team and that was scoring. To further support totally arrogance of Gillis is story James Duthie tells about during 2011 Finals and how Gillis thought they had the Cup all wrapped up and wrong. Another instance if where Franciso asked Gillis to meet with Quinn to discuss having him return to organization in some capacity which never happened.

I find it pretty funny coming from member who referred to Portland Winterhawks as "Cheaterhawks" How exactly did they cheat?

CALGARY, AB. - The Western Hockey League announced today the disciplinary action which has been taken against the Portland Winterhawks franchise for a series of violations of the WHL Regulations.

As a result of a series of player benefit violations which have occurred over the past four seasons, WHL Commissioner Ron Robison has suspended the Portland Winterhawks from participating in the first five rounds of the 2013 WHL Bantam Draft and the forfeiture of their first round selections in the 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 WHL Bantam Drafts. Should the first round selection in 2014 not be available due to a conditional trade, Portland will surrender their second and third round picks in the 2014 WHL Bantam Draft. The WHL also announced the Portland Winterhawks have been fined $200,000 and Winterhawks General Manager and Head Coach Mike Johnston has been suspended for the balance of the 2012-13 season, including the 2013 WHL Playoffs.

“All WHL Clubs understand they are required to fully comply and respect our League Regulations or they will face significant consequences,” stated WHL Commissioner Ron Robison. “WHL Clubs are required to fully disclose all commitments they make to a player in the WHL Standard Player Agreement. Our independent investigation in this case revealed there were multiple violations over an extended period for player benefits that are not permitted under WHL Regulations and were not disclosed to the WHL. It should also be noted through the course of the investigation there was no evidence of any payments or enhanced education benefits provided to players that would be contrary to WHL Regulations as previous media reports indicated.”

[tas]

Torts is no more arrogant then Gillis who threw Torts under the bus and blaming him for how the season went in what turned out to be his final address on 1040. Unbelievable. Gillis for the first and only time finally decides to man up and take responsibility for the state of this team (which was last ditch attempt to save his job and save face) and utter mess he's made which started following 2011 Finals and continued on through 2 coaches (AV, Torts). He didn't address the biggest problem for this team and that was scoring. To further support totally arrogance of Gillis is story James Duthie tells about during 2011 Finals and how Gillis thought they had the Cup all wrapped up and wrong. Another instance if where Franciso asked Gillis to meet with Quinn to discuss having him return to organization in some capacity which never happened.

I find it pretty funny coming from member who referred to Portland Winterhawks as "Cheaterhawks" How exactly did they cheat?

so your argument is that mike gillis is arrogant, therefore tortorella's arrogance is justified?

i'm trying to find your point and can't do it.