VANCOUVER—Standing in the same hallway where one of the defining—and ugly—moments of his brief and tumultuous time with the Vancouver Canucks took place, John Tortorella seems more relaxed, if only a little.
The head coach of the high-flying Columbus Blue Jackets still has a fire that can burn white hot, but he’s just led a practice where a smile rarely left his face.
Sure, winning has something to do with it, but Tortorella is also a man taking a little more time to smell the roses after being pitched to the NHL’s scrap heap by the Canucks, unsure if he would ever get another chance.
“It’s part of the job, being fired,” said Tortorella. “It gives you a chance to step back and assess yourself—what you feel you did right, what you feel you did wrong—and just have a little bit of honesty within yourself.”
Turnaround
Another opportunity came earlier than most observers expected when the Blue Jackets fired Todd Richards after an 0–7 start last season. Columbus still missed the playoffs, but Tortorella laid the groundwork for a group that sits 21–5–4 through 30 games in 2016–17 in the ultra-competitive Metropolitan Division.
Despite a successful career that included a Stanley Cup victory in 2004 with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Tortorella—who won his 500th game as an NHL coach last Sunday when Columbus beat Vancouver in overtime—joined the Blue Jackets with plenty of baggage.
His outbursts in the media and on the bench are legendary. But the 58-year-old Boston native makes no excuses for the demands he puts on players, and the Blue Jackets have responded in kind.
“If you work and you play to the way that he wants and the way that you’re capable of, then you'll never have a better coach,” said Columbus captain Nick Foligno. “I definitely didn’t play to my abilities last year and we had some friction, and rightfully so.
