[Report] Torts Fired

[icycold]

Torts wasn't the right coach for the team. Great choice by management!

Exactly! Why would we want a coach here that has won a stanly cup??? We don't want anyone like that in Vancouver do we...

[Colts_14]

well we were doing fine until the injury bug came.. and it was downhill from there

[tas]

Exactly! Why would we want a coach here that has won a stanly cup??? We don't want anyone like that in Vancouver do we...

hiring a cup winning coach is a good way to guarantee your team doesn't win one.

[Honky Cat]

well we were doing fine until the injury bug came.. and it was downhill from there

No we were not..JT was riding the core like rented mules ,pretty reckless ..7 out of the 9 wins were against non playoff teams..We were also playing a style not conducive to the personnel..It was train wreck waiting to happen.

[aGENT]

Lack of other options? In the end, Lack WAS the option.... (sorry for cheesy wordplay)

They could have bought out Luongo and kept Schneider. Expensive proposal yes, but not impossible.

I don't have a microscope to assess the dealing of the other 29 teams in recent years, but I don't recall too many instances where the team extends a young goalie's contract, goes out of their way to inform him that he is their #1, and then proceeds to trade him a few months later.

The whole situation was a disaster by any team's standard.

I actually enjoyed the word play!

Buying out Lu would have been terrible asset management. Dollars were not remotely the primary concern there IMO. Gillis would quite possibly have been fired then and there if that was truly the only "out".

Not arguing the situation wasn't a mess (it was). That still does not mean it was some shady conspiracy hatched in a backroom somewhere. At least not by the Canucks...

[oldnews]

Some protests from the keep-Torts crew, but still have yet to hear a decent case made for retaining him.

Trying to separate the coach from the results is just poor logic and reasoning - the season can't simply be blamed on a GM that didn't provide enough depth (and btw if Torts was such a genius, he'd have brought players along and gotten something out of players like Lain, Archibald, Dalpe, Sestito, Welsh, (Weise) etc. Instead he openly expressed his lack of value for them.

What is his strongest asset? Most likely his passion - and unfortunately it got the best of him this year. Hartley pushed his button and Torts lost it. He also lost it publicly, berating players on the bench. A positive asset if he can harness it - unfortunately, he lost it a number of times - one of them resulting in a lengthly and costly absence (although the team was already sliding rapidly).

Other lost assets - the adjustments, timeouts and general pulse of games. He was at an absolute loss the second half of the season.

No shortage of irony from folks claiming to defend his systems against those they feel know nothing about them - however, have yet to hear anything resembling an attempt to describe let alone defend them. They aren't the Caramilk secret folks - every coach in the NHL knows what Tortorella is up to - it took the Western conference a couple months to gameplan him. There is a fair amount of information out there, aside from your own observations, with which to inform yourselves. A few derps in the media may not bother to try to understand anything about systems, but the reality is that they aren't a mystery, certainly not to his opponents. Couple that with a general dismissal of x's, o's, advanced analytics, etc and it's not a surprise that Tortorella's success curve is trending rapidly downwards.

Anyone who wishes to explain the genius of the aggressive 2-1-2 forecheck (which tends to drop into a 2-3 when it's getting owned), why that forecheck suits this team, how our blueline is suited for the aggressive and frequent pinching it calls for, what happens when it's broken, or his preference for a collapsing zone defense, what that leaves in terms of space and puck possession opportunities for the opposition, how successful the team was generating transition offense coming out of that zone defense when the wingers are so relatively low, why they wound up dumping and chasing/changing so frequently, etc. Is there a disjoint between such an aggressive forecheck, and then collapsing in one's own zone, and is there a further disjoint hoping to generate transition offense coming out of it? Would welcome those explanations from you folks who understand and defend Tortorella's systems.

Where was the team supposed to generate offense when the forecheck wasn't highly effective? On the powerplay they didn't practice? What was with all the stretch passing? Does that suit the type of puck possession personnel the Canucks have? If people are suggesting we don't understand the systems, they may have a point. They didn't necessarily make a great deal of obvious sense. Again, would welcome any of the Tortorella faithful to explain the genius of, the finer points, or correct the wrong impressions of these systems.

Aside from the debatable systems - there were simply lots of other reasons to lack confidence in the coach - starting with the obviously disputed player personnel decisions, whether it's a combination of a gruelling travel and play, compacted Olympic schedule with 28 back to backs in the first 60 days, and overplaying your top forwards while underutilizing your role and depth players, whether it's the wisdom of using the Sedins to kill more penalties that Jannick Hansen, the decision to attempt to silly-putty Alex Edler into the primary hard-minutes shutdown blueliner when you have guys like Hamhuis, Garrison, Tanev.... or the attempt to force the Edler/Bieksa pairing when it's never worked.... There were contradictions where using young players was concerned - he was way over-praised for his handling of Kassian and not simply throwing him up to the top 6, and yet threw a greener Jensen into precisely those circumstances. We could go through the season and compile a long list of decisions that it would be interesting to hear the reasoning behind - playing the fourth line 3,4,5 minutes a night - and not simply after injuries hit, but from October. There are a lot of decisions there without obvious upside.

All of that could be chalked up to a learning curve - (and a wasted season if that's acceptable) but the truly problematic thing in the end was the position he took at the end of it all. Overplay your top players? Nope, not going to convince him of that. Yet, the schedule and the effect was not unpredictable - in fact his former GM noted the same drop off in performance with his former team - one that sits in a plum, central travel reality in NY, not the West Coast. Obviously the cautions were not heeded. Are youre systems appropriate for this roster? No, not going to engage in "style of play" questions - those are "internal" matters, and besides, you guys don't understand the systems. Opportunity there to defend them was missed / sidestepped. On the other hand, lots of answers to unasked questions - the depth was lacking, the core was old, the GM didn't provide enough to work with - pretty much precipitated the "style of play" questions by commenting on those before the infamous Gillis interview. Contrary to some people's perception - it is not the job of the coach to "expose" his roster or expose the weaknesses of his players/team. Not good coaching form, not good, strategic public presentation form.

The line that the 'team sucked' and no other coach could have done better is simply not good enough.

Kudos to Linden for trying to talk himself out of this decision, putting it to a strong test, and coming to the conclusion that he did.

[hlinkas wrister]

Exactly! Why would we want a coach here that has won a stanly cup??? We don't want anyone like that in Vancouver do we...

Mike Keenan won a Stanley cup. Would you want him back ?

[Vancanwincup]

Why are people surprised by this move and why are people saying it is a mistake and the core is the problem. The two are separate of each other, meaning just because Linden let Torts go does not mean he is blaming the team terrible play entirely on Torts.

People are acting like this is the only move Linden is going to make; we have the entire summer for Linden to make some minor core chances to better the team.

I had it as a 50/50 chance Torts would be gone. When Linden said" I have to talk to the coach and players to see where everyone thinks the team went wrong" or something to that train of thought.

Vancouver biggest problem, the last few years, has been depth of scoring at the top six position. The wing position has been a big problem. They are good at center with Henrick and Kesler, but the wing position has been filled with player unable to provide true top six scoring.

Burrows is good with the Sedins, but is not a top line player. Yes, he is capable of the job and good at it, but he is just as good playing on the third line providing scoring.

A big mistake of the management was not picking up a true number one winger to play with the Sedin (like Hossa).

The same could said of the second line; Kesler needs a true top six player to play with, preferable a play-maker, This year could prove to be the year Kesler gets that player if Kassian improves on what looked like a year in which he was becoming a play making power-forward.

Of course Kesler could be traded! Then we hope the players/player coming back is a center or the center position will be a weakness, unless one the young rookies shines.

Too much to write about with the Canucks; defense needs to be changed up as well. Is Lack ready for the number one, a hard one to judge with the teams performance.

I do not know! All I know is Torts and Gillis being let go is not the only move Linden is going to do. See where Linden has this team at puck drop of 2014-2015 before going crazy on him.

[Neversummer]

Still curious as to who leaked it out to Farhan ... was that every asked of Trevor in the presser?

Was it an intentional leak, to test the waters? Or is there a mole in the upper echelon of management?

Trevor better fixed that ... if it wasn't planned and intentional.

[DefCon1]

Exactly! Why would we want a coach here that has won a stanly cup??? We don't want anyone like that in Vancouver do we...

We don't want a coach that resulted in the team getting the lowest number of points in 14 years. The coach that has won a cup a decade ago doesn't make him an ideal coach just because of that. Did we win a cup with Marc Crawford who also had a cup ring after 7 years of coaching the team?

[beartooth]

Cleaning house from the top down. The new GM will get who he wants, but, Linden is the top and he is going to pick the way he wants the direction of this team to go. Going to be interesting.

[awalk]

Still curious as to who leaked it out to Farhan ... was that every asked of Trevor in the presser?

Was it an intentional leak, to test the waters? Or is there a mole in the upper echelon of management?

Trevor better fixed that ... if it wasn't planned and intentional.

This stuff always seems to leak the night before. It's probably intentional or known about...have to throw the reporters a bone sometimes or else you are going to get a lot of push back from them in terms of negative press. Although this is Vancouver so that's a given...lol..

[NexusRift]

I only found out about Tort's firing this morning. I have mixed feelings about this. What's done is done, but nonetheless, here's my opinion on it............

I can't help feeling that he didn't get a fair shake. There were lotsa' circumstances that affected the team this past season that more than likely contributed to the poor performance. Certainly most prominent the new coaching staff and system, but injuries played their part too.

If we flashback to late November and the month of December last year, the 'Nuck's kicked ass! We were rollin' and it appeared to me that the Torts system of hockey was working. And then for whatever reasons, be they injuries, bad decisions, line juggling, player minutes, WHATEVER, we got lousy.

Based on that great December, it would seem to me that Tort's, given half the chance, might've turned things around. Be that as it may, that's all moot and will remain to be such 'cuz.................dude's gandy!

Best of luck, J.T.

[aGENT]

If we flashback to late November and the month of December last year, the 'Nuck's kicked ass! We were rollin' and it appeared to me that the Torts system of hockey was working.

No we were not..JT was riding the core like rented mules ,pretty reckless ..7 out of the 9 wins were against non playoff teams..We were also playing a style not conducive to the personnel..It was train wreck waiting to happen.

[b3.]

As much as I would have loved to see John get another season, he was good as gone as soon as Gillis was fired. There was no way that they were going to let the Gillis and Vigneault situation occur again.

[Dogbyte]

Some protests from the keep-Torts crew, but still have yet to hear a decent case made for retaining him.

Trying to separate the coach from the results is just poor logic and reasoning - the season can't simply be blamed on a GM that didn't provide enough depth (and btw if Torts was such a genius, he'd have brought players along and gotten something out of players like Lain, Archibald, Dalpe, Sestito, Welsh, (Weise) etc. Instead he openly expressed his lack of value for them.

What is his strongest asset? Most likely his passion - and unfortunately it got the best of him this year. Hartley pushed his button and Torts lost it. He also lost it publicly, berating players on the bench. A positive asset if he can harness it - unfortunately, he lost it a number of times - one of them resulting in a lengthly and costly absence (although the team was already sliding rapidly).

Other lost assets - the adjustments, timeouts and general pulse of games. He was at an absolute loss the second half of the season.

No shortage of irony from folks claiming to defend his systems against those they feel know nothing about them - however, have yet to hear anything resembling an attempt to describe let alone defend them. They aren't the Caramilk secret folks - every coach in the NHL knows what Tortorella is up to - it took the Western conference a couple months to gameplan him. There is a fair amount of information out there, aside from your own observations, with which to inform yourselves. A few derps in the media may not bother to try to understand anything about systems, but the reality is that they aren't a mystery, certainly not to his opponents. Couple that with a general dismissal of x's, o's, advanced analytics, etc and it's not a surprise that Tortorella's success curve is trending rapidly downwards.

Anyone who wishes to explain the genius of the aggressive 2-1-2 forecheck (which tends to drop into a 2-3 when it's getting owned), why that forecheck suits this team, how our blueline is suited for the aggressive and frequent pinching it calls for, what happens when it's broken, or his preference for a collapsing zone defense, what that leaves in terms of space and puck possession opportunities for the opposition, how successful the team was generating transition offense coming out of that zone defense when the wingers are so relatively low, why they wound up dumping and chasing/changing so frequently, etc. Is there a disjoint between such an aggressive forecheck, and then collapsing in one's own zone, and is there a further disjoint hoping to generate transition offense coming out of it? Would welcome those explanations from you folks who understand and defend Tortorella's systems.

Where was the team supposed to generate offense when the forecheck wasn't highly effective? On the powerplay they didn't practice? What was with all the stretch passing? Does that suit the type of puck possession personnel the Canucks have? If people are suggesting we don't understand the systems, they may have a point. They didn't necessarily make a great deal of obvious sense. Again, would welcome any of the Tortorella faithful to explain the genius of, the finer points, or correct the wrong impressions of these systems.

Aside from the debatable systems - there were simply lots of other reasons to lack confidence in the coach - starting with the obviously disputed player personnel decisions, whether it's a combination of a gruelling travel and play, compacted Olympic schedule with 28 back to backs in the first 60 days, and overplaying your top forwards while underutilizing your role and depth players, whether it's the wisdom of using the Sedins to kill more penalties that Jannick Hansen, the decision to attempt to silly-putty Alex Edler into the primary hard-minutes shutdown blueliner when you have guys like Hamhuis, Garrison, Tanev.... or the attempt to force the Edler/Bieksa pairing when it's never worked.... There were contradictions where using young players was concerned - he was way over-praised for his handling of Kassian and not simply throwing him up to the top 6, and yet threw a greener Jensen into precisely those circumstances. We could go through the season and compile a long list of decisions that it would be interesting to hear the reasoning behind - playing the fourth line 3,4,5 minutes a night - and not simply after injuries hit, but from October. There are a lot of decisions there without obvious upside.

All of that could be chalked up to a learning curve - (and a wasted season if that's acceptable) but the truly problematic thing in the end was the position he took at the end of it all. Overplay your top players? Nope, not going to convince him of that. Yet, the schedule and the effect was not unpredictable - in fact his former GM noted the same drop off in performance with his former team - one that sits in a plum, central travel reality in NY, not the West Coast. Obviously the cautions were not heeded. Are youre systems appropriate for this roster? No, not going to engage in "style of play" questions - those are "internal" matters, and besides, you guys don't understand the systems. Opportunity there to defend them was missed / sidestepped. On the other hand, lots of answers to unasked questions - the depth was lacking, the core was old, the GM didn't provide enough to work with - pretty much precipitated the "style of play" questions by commenting on those before the infamous Gillis interview. Contrary to some people's perception - it is not the job of the coach to "expose" his roster or expose the weaknesses of his players/team. Not good coaching form, not good, strategic public presentation form.

The line that the 'team sucked' and no other coach could have done better is simply not good enough.

Kudos to Linden for trying to talk himself out of this decision, putting it to a strong test, and coming to the conclusion that he did.

Stopped reading at cannot make an excuse for the GM sucking.

That's it oldnews. he has sucked in his last couple years. I admire trying to accept reality and stick with the process but MG failed big time.

Face it ... your stats mean nothing.

[youngdad]

Torts' fire got Torts fired.

[D-Money]

No one believed me when I reported it last week told you all, he sucks!

LOL. I "reported it" when we gave up a 3rd period touchdown to the Islanders.

Torts getting canned was inevitable.

[youngdad]

I didn't like John Tortorella being here as head coach. I wanted him fired. But now that he's gone I kind of wish it wasn't done until the new GM could come in and make a decision.

I see how Linden wants to give the incumbent GM a "clean slate." But shouldn't the decision to fire the head coach be the GM's? What does this say about how decisions are made in the Canucks headquarters? Was this Aquilini's final purge of all things Gillis? Was this Lindens call? The new GM may wonder just how much autonomy he really has.

What if the new GM is brought in and the head coach he really wants behind the bench happens to be John Tortorella? Ha! Wouldn't that be ironic! You can't bring him back now, so that's one coach off the list. How much autonomy does the new GM really have? And how much will Linden and Aquilinni want to be involved in the next hire or trade or signing?

I'm glad Torts is gone. He was unprofessional, and no organization needs that. At this point the Canucks ESPECIALLY do not need unprofessional behaviour.

I'm not sure this firing was done the right way though. I would have hired the new GM, told him he could do whatever he wanted. Let the new GM fire Torts as his first order of business and show the whole organization who is calling the personnel shots.

[UnkNuk]

I didn't like John Tortorella being here as head coach. I wanted him fired. But now that he's gone I kind of wish it wasn't done until the new GM could come in and make a decision.

I see how Linden wants to give the incumbent GM a "clean slate." But shouldn't the decision to fire the head coach be the GM's? What does this say about how decisions are made in the Canucks headquarters? Was this Aquilini's final purge of all things Gillis? Was this Lindens call? The new GM may wonder just how much autonomy he really has.

What if the new GM is brought in and the head coach he really wants behind the bench happens to be John Tortorella? He may have experience with Torts, or he may like his style of play, or his "fire", or he may think he is what this changing team needs, or he may just feel that some continuity behind the bench is more important than anything. You can't bring him back now, so that's one coach off the list. How much autonomy does the new GM really have? And how much will Linden and Aquilinni want to be involved in the next hire or trade or signing?

I'm glad Torts is gone. He was unprofessional, and no organization needs that. At this point the Canucks ESPECIALLY do not need unprofessional behaviour.

I'm not sure this firing was done the right way though. I would have hired the new GM, told him he could do whatever he wanted. Let the new GM fire Torts as his first order of business and show the whole organization who is calling the personnel shots.

There's a theory that the Canucks have settled on their gm and are awaiting the team he is currently on to be bounced from the playoffs so they can sign him. And that they cleared the Torts question with him before the firing. They didn't wait until the actual signing of this new gm because they didn't want to leave Torts hanging out to dry.

Sounds plausible to me, especially if it's true.