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Was John Totorella a blessing in disguise?


Canuckler87

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"this team is not 6th worst"

You're right. Offensively they were 2nd worst in the league, they have a rookie goaltender and the league leader in minuses on the back end.

Tort's had the team competitive until the Sedins just couldn't keep it going.

Losing Kes will consolidate the rebuild.

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Yeah but as a coach you coach the players you have, not ask the GM to get better players, I have never heard any coach say that before. There isn't a single team in the league we could say will win the cup next yeara, I wouldn't bet the house on any one team. They still had some solid pieces, the last few years they were not able to add guys in free agency becasue of the cap, this year they were gonna have the opportunity to spend also there was reason to beleive some of their prospects could be inserted in to the line up. They would be far from the favorites, but there was definately a possiblity they were gonna be better this coming year with the exisiting core.

With Kesler wanting a trade to either Chicago or Anahiem, the core comes up way short. The Sedins' should bounce back (although Daniel worries me), Burrows was not a force last year and was injured and then injured again with the national team (big question mark). The Sedins' combined for a grand total of around 100 pts between them, down from 111 and 107 pts respectively....that is a huge drop off. Santorelli....will he perform like he did before his injury?

If Kesler is traded for a couple of 1st's and a prospect, we will pick up some really solid prospects but they will take at least 1 more year (more lik 2 or 3) before they can step in. That basically makes us a one line offensive team again assuming the Sedin line plays up to 1st line standards....the 2nd line will be makeshift again unless we get Reinhart in the draft.

This is going to take time to retool, rebuild or whatever we term it and there is no use pushing prospects who are not ready to make the jump. Some will make the team next year but not enough to be considered ready to challenge for a SC again.

Willie Desjardins is going to be a huge factor in how quickly the new guys learn and the vets adapt and will definately be a positive over Tortorella. I just hope that the prospects are not overly rushed just to make the playoffs.

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  • 2 weeks later...

At least torts was entertaining, passionate, and stood up for those players that deserved it. That stretch of losing badly to Anaheim, then losing to LA but then beating Calgary was exciting hockey. Showed those teams the Canucks wouldn't be pushed around physically like they were in the past.

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I predicted one - maybe two years and was correct as he was never a fit for this market and team. Aside from being overly emotional and unprofessional he was by far the worst coach since Keenan - but not as bad as him. He belongs in an east coast big city American market.

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I said it when we hired him. He will either be amazing, or a spectacular failure. The sad part is he didn't really motivate guys like I thought he would.

He did things like make the Sedins and Kesler play way more often than they could handle. I was surprised how conservative of a coach he was, and that he really didn't trust his younger players. Even when the younger guys were doing better than the vets.

But the fact he didn't scope out the opposition at all, he didn't work with the Comets on how prospects were doing. He did a lot of things that I think are pretty basic in coaching an NHL team. I should have known when Ferraro was talking about him working at TSN, saying he noticed Tort's never memorized player names, and it was a holdover from his coaching days.

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Before they hired him I ranted about how big of a mistake it was if they did. Then during the season around x-mas time I kind of changed my mind, but it turned out to be a big mistake

He was an entertaining interview, that's about it.

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Someone had to drive the bus over the cliff to enable all the changes from Linden, Benning, Desjardins to players...so yes, Torts was a blessing in disguise. Don't know about this Toto-rella fella you're talking about, though.

Good point..As we were driving off the cliff,everybody's rose colored spectacles flew off..If it wasn't for Torts driving the bus..we'd all still be wearing them..

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I'll be amazed if he's ever hired again to coach at the NHL level. Shame on Bob Clarke for saying how well he works with younger players as a teaching coach. This was said when he and Clarke were analysts on TSN a few years back. For someone that rarely attended practices, overused his veterans to the point of fatigue, and never communicated with Utica or their coaching staff.

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It forced us from one era to the next. whether that's a good thing remains to be seen, with so much riding on the next week/

I will say this, the Torts era was bizzare,

I hope someday in future someone really opens up about the whole situation. Because there are obviously so many things we don't know.

That would be an amazing book idea,

"My year under Torts " By Alex Edler

I want Edler to hold off on writing that book until he finishes writing his first book, "How I am going to get back to what I should be."

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