John Tortorella's Style of Coaching: A History

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Joshua Deeds
September 13, 2022 (9:55)

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The media and fans alike take turns laying into John Tortorella, who by all standards is no stranger to the hot takes, of the Don Cherry style lately, and his opinion on the Trevor Zegras Michigan goal set the hockey world on fire with his orthodox style of thinking.

Since moving on from the ESPN broadcast team, he was hired by the Philadelphia Flyers as head coach, with help from former Columbus Blue Jacket, Cam Atkinson.

Tortorella has a storied history in the NHL, coaching the Tampa Bay Lightning to a Stanley Cup, coaching the New York Rangers, and Vancouver Canucks, and his most recently stretching coaching the Columbus Blue Jackets from 2015-2021.

He put Columbus on the map by sweeping the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2019, out-coaching Jon Cooper.

Since then, Tortorella's reputation is murky and with the media constantly criticizing him, a piece by Jordan Hall has contrasted the current narrative, of being rash, calculated, and hateful toward younger players.

«Torts, it didn't matter if you were a first-line guy or a fourth-line guy, he'd challenge guys and verbally give it to them if he didn't think they weren't giving it their all,» he said. «That's one thing I really appreciated about him as a player.»

All the praise for Tortorella hasn't really mainstreamed, other than here in Columbus post-2019 when the Nick Foligno-led squad was still wearing Union Blue.

Can Tortorella in his controversial and confrontational style, really get a lot of the current roster of Philadelphia Flyers?

It's a nice, thought however with recent reports of him throwing Travis Konecny under the bus, is the praise warranted? Or is it more of his "persona"?

«But he was able to deflect all that pressure off of every single one of us and bring it on himself. The fans were booing him there, they were all over him. It was never about our goaltending, it was never about our power play, no one wrote anything about how bad we played in Game 2. It was all about Hitch and Torts.

«When I say manipulative, I mean it in a good way � that he manipulates what's going on around to protect his players.»

This piece is a great piece of history for Tortorella who absolutely deserves respect for his cup win, but it took him 6 years to turn Columbus into a competitive club. He plans to hang it up after this season and then what happens to Chuck Fletcher? Fired?

«The thing that goes unnoticed to a lot of people that don't know him is the passion he has not only for the game, but for his locker room, for his team, for the players � everyone that surrounds the team,» Taylor said. «He wants everyone to be treated with respect, everyone working together and collectively as a team. He just wants one big engine working in one direction and that's trying to win.