John Tortorella will not return as Golden Knights coach
The Vegas Golden Knights announced on Tuesday that John Tortorella will not return as the club’s head coach next season.
Tortorella, who was hired on March 30 with eight games remaining in the regular season, agreed to a contract that only spanned the duration of the 2025-26 league year.
After sparking a turnaround that saw the Knights go from the playoff bubble to a dominant team that made it all the way to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, Tortorella will not be back, and Vegas will be looking for a new head coach.
“We thank Torts for the guidance he provided our team since joining the organization in March,” McCrimmon said via the team’s press release. “When the decision was made to bring Torts to Vegas, we needed an immediate impact to help us at a pivotal point in the season. Torts’ experience and leadership proved to be the boost that we were looking for, helping guide us to the Stanley Cup Final. We are grateful for Torts’ passion, sincerity, and commitment to our organization, and we wish him and his family the best.”
The veteran head coach, who won his first and only Stanley Cup behind the bench of the 2004 Tampa Bay Lightning, engineered a quick late-season turnaround powered by drastically improved defensive performance from the moment he took over for Bruce Cassidy, who is still contractually tied to the Golden Knights’ organization. Vegas has refused to grant Cassidy permission to speak with other teams about their coaching vacancies.
The Golden Knights fended off a talented Utah Mammoth team in the first round of the playoffs before handling the Anaheim Ducks in six games in the second round.
Neither of those outcomes were particularly surprising, as the Pacific Division’s portion of the bracket was seen as weak based on regular season performance, especially when compared to the loaded Central Division.
But when the time came to face the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final, Tortorella and the Knights pulled off one of the most surprising four-game sweeps in the history of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
That set up a Stanley Cup Final showdown with the Carolina Hurricanes, and the Golden Knights jumped out to a 2-1 lead through three games, seemingly setting Tortorella up for a golden opportunity at his second ring. Instead, goalie Carter Hart continued to falter as Tortorella continued to trust his starter, and Vegas wore down as the Hurricanes revved their game up, allowing Carolina to rattle off three straight wins to take the series, and the Cup, in six games.