Golden Knights moving on from Tortorella not a surprise
The Vegas Golden Knights will be going in a different direction behind the bench, but is it a surprise?
It was announced on Tuesday that John Tortorella wouldn’t be returning as head coach of the Vegas Golden Knights. It comes after a memorable run for the team, coming within two wins of the franchise’s second Stanley Cup. Tortorella was a late-season replacement, taking over the fired Bruce Cassidy with just eight games to go in the regular season, turning the ship around to help Vegas clinch first place in the Pacific Division before the team made it to the championship series for the third time in its young history.
Yet, as he was only brought in on an interim basis, some wondered if Tortorella would be at the helm in a full-time capacity next season.
On Tuesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Jeff Marek of The Sheet joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to explain why Tortorella not returning to the Golden Knights next fall shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
Jeff Marek: This was the plan all along, right? When they fired Bruce Cassidy, they were going to go short-term with John Tortorella, and then eventually, as we’ve been talking about for a while here, to go to the Henderson Silver Knights with Ryan Craig. So, that’s…I’m assuming the same plan that Kelly McCrimmon had is the one that he’s going to execute for next season.
I don’t think this one is a surprise. John Tortorella short-term is a lot different than John Tortorella long-term, where you know when he has some runway to work with a team. There’s ups and downs, but John Tortorella didn’t have that opportunity here. He had to jump in both feet on the ground and start running, so he didn’t get a chance to find a power base and attack it like he did with Philadelphia, with Cam York, or other stops. This was very much – John had to be on on best behavior to get to get the team to where it needed to go, and I don’t think anyone should be surprised that even though they got to the Stanley Cup final…and you’re not going to bring it back, I understand that, but I think if it was anyone other than John Tortorella, I think there might have been more of a more of an appetite to bring them back.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…