New York Rangers “Top Players” Wanted John Tortorella Fired
By Josh Hill
The New York Rangers made a gusty move on Thursday when they fired oft-outspoken head coach John Tortorella, but it apparently wasn’t without good reason. While some may have viewed Tortorrella as a throwback coach who didn’t take crap from anyone, the players he played for didn’t share that sentiment and the New York Daily News reports that “top players” on Tortorella’s team were involved in getting him fired.
While the players remained nameless, certain names surface in your mind when you think about guys who weren’t seeing eye-to-eye with Torts during the 2013 season. Sean Avery tweeted back in March that he wanted Torts fired, going as far as to publicly call his former head coach a “clown”.
There were also rumblings that netminder Henrik Lundqvist wasn’t sold on re-signing with the Rangers as long as Tortorella was head coach, which is something management seemed to have taken to heart when they made the decision to let Torts go.
General manager Glen Sather said in a conference call that his reason for firing Tortorella may seem vague and the notion that players were involved in the decision would be a pretty good explanation as to why.
“There isn’t one specific incident or one specific reason that brought this about,” he said, via ProHockeyTalk. “Every coach has a shelf life.”
You really don’t have to dig deep to come up with a shortlist of players who would have been happy to throw Tortorella under the bus for the way he coached the team in 2013. Brad Richards was scratched in crucial games during the Rangers final postseason series against the Boston Bruins and Carl Hagelin made headlines after Tortorella said he stinks on power plays.
He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, but it appears as though Tortorella overstepped his bounds by a long shot on this one and his players weren’t ready to rally behind a guy they clearly didn’t respect. It’s hard to believe Torts will change, which begs the question of how hard it will be for him to get a job if this surly reputation is now tattooed to his legacy.
It’s one thing to treat the media like garbage, but when you do it to your players, don’t be surprised when they’re not jumping in front of speeding buses for you, rather they’re the ones driving.